Fabula Post Bellum: The Schism Revival
by Maverick.Heart
Summary: CHAPTER 19 UP! The fallout of the conflict between Gryffindor and Slytherin has adverse consequences for the whole of Hogwarts, but in particular the Potter siblings and their Weasley kin, who find themselves staring into the proverbial abyss - only to find the proverbial abyss staring back.
1. Chapter 1: Frederick, Frieda, and Flora

_**The Schism Revival**_

 _ **Volume III of the Fabula Post Bellum Saga**_

 **Chapter 1: Frederick, Frieda, and Flora**

"Oi! James! You find it?"

"Gimme a second!"

His eyes scanned each shelf, starting with the first and working his way upward. Just when the sheer height of the small square stockroom threatened to make him dizzy, he found it – a small, red box on the sixth shelf up.

James glanced at the ladder nearby and gave a sigh. He'd never liked that ladder, and it was going to take a while to climb up there, retrieve the box, and climb back down.

He took his wand out of his back pocket. Dad would frown at that. But James had forgotten the sheath for his wand at home – well, less "forgotten" and more like "purposely left gathering dust on his dresser because he couldn't be bothered with it." He hadn't yet mastered how to call his wand to his hand from a short distance without actually grabbing hold of it, and until he could do that, the sheath was just one more thing between his needing the wand and actually grabbing it.

Strictly speaking, of course, James and other underage wizards weren't allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts. But even his own mother admitted it was a rule primarily made for young wizards that had to leave Hogwarts and live with Muggle parents. The Statute of Secrecy was a big deal – when it actually applied.

But here, in the middle of Diagon Alley, which was a commercial district in London made by wizards, for wizards, that could only be accessed by wizards – there weren't really many secrets about magic. On-duty hit wizards – at least, according to James's best friend Richard Murphy, who had a grandfather and a father that had served and an uncle that was currently on the force – could still technically detain an underage wizard for performing magic outside of school if they saw the act being committed. In this tiny but impossibly high stock room, there were no hit wizards to catch him. (James cast a half-joking look over his shoulder just to make sure.)

James pointed the wand at the sixth shelf and aimed. The first thought that popped into his head was the Summoning Charm, which he had learned a couple of years ago. Then he remembered his first practice with the charm. The targeted object had come much too quickly, zoomed right through his grip, and hit a Slytherin girl in the forehead, resulting in the whole Slytherin half of the class glaring at him and thinking he had done it on purpose…

He lowered his wand, suddenly saddened, then shook his head, frustrated at his own sadness.

James Potter had spent the first several weeks after returning from Hogwarts in a lethargic funk. Most recently, his father had sent him here, to London, to stay with an aunt, uncle and cousins, help out at the shop, and "get his mind off things."

If only it were that easy, James thought. There were so many "things." When he'd last left Hogwarts, two of the four Houses were one more taunt or suspicious injury away from open war with each other. At least, that's what it felt like. Things had always been a bit tense – one could argue they had been 'a bit tense' for several centuries – but toward the end of the school year, something happened that had caused that tension to morph into outright hatred.

Neville Longbottom, one of the heroes of the last great Wizarding War, Head of Gryffindor House, and a personal friend of James's, was attacked and nearly murdered – by a Slytherin student. The student – in a small part because of James's own efforts – was stopped and apprehended. Understandably, this enraged many of the students in James's own House Gryffindor. James wasn't happy about it, either – but for different reasons.

The first problem was that the student that had been arrested for attacking Neville – a seventh year named Garrick Claudius – wasn't actually the guilty party. He had been set up – framed by another seventh year – and somehow also coerced into confessing the crime.

From the point of view of the authorities, it was an open-and-shut case.

As far as they saw, Claudius, who'd had run-ins with trouble earlier that term, lost control of his temper and assaulted a ranked authority in Hogwarts. Moreover, he'd used an Unforgivable Curse on someone who tried to stop him. Maybe expulsion from Hogwarts and a short stint in Azkaban – or even in the smaller, newer Ogden Ward in the main Ministry building in London – would have been the worst to happen to Claudius if that one curse hadn't been involved. But Unforgivable Curses were called as much for a reason – thus, Claudius could look forward to spending the rest of his days in an Azkaban cell…

…For a crime he had confessed to, but had not committed.

For what it was worth, which wasn't much, his father had told him that prisoners there were treated much more humanely than they had been when he was a young boy. Foul, demonic creatures called Dementors, he had said, used to guard the place as opposed to the wizards used today. They were probably his greatest fear growing up, and still were, to an extent. That gave James two good reasons to not want to meet a Dementor – ever. If the great Harry Potter was still afraid of them to this day, that was reason enough. But if he'd been more afraid of them, even back then, than he was of Voldemort himself… well, James hoped he never had the bad luck of running into one.

But Dementors or no Dementors – prison was still prison, and it was no place for an eighteen-year-old that had done absolutely nothing wrong but be the most believable suspect.

James didn't know Claudius personally, although he knew Claudius was no angel – he'd earned himself a term's worth of detentions with Neville in the first place by punching out a younger Gryffindor boy. Still, though – _prison_? Claudius might have deserved detention, but not prison. James wanted so badly to clear the poor bloke's name and get him out.

But the only chance for justice had disappeared.

Morris Beal was a youth in House Hufflepuff that had graduated that past spring. To most, he was an upstanding young man with an affinity for Defense Against the Dark Arts. But James knew that behind that façade lay a twisted, manipulative individual with a cause known only to himself. But the cause itself wasn't what made Beal dangerous; it was his willingness to do anything, to sacrifice anybody, to get there. James's thoughts turned to the young girl that had been cut off from her wizard peers. She, James thought, would have been starting her third year this coming September. James wondered what had happened to her.

"James!" A tall, tan boy with shoulder-length brown dreadlocks strode into the stock cellar. "You daydreaming again?"

"I found it," James replied, pointing up toward the red box on the sixth shelf, with his wand.

He grimaced.

"Well, go on," the dreadlocked boy said with a smile. "Get it down."

James couldn't exactly whip his wand out for everything here at the shop, but his Uncle George and Aunt Angelina weren't nearly as strict about the magic thing. They certainly weren't with their twin children, Freddy and Roxanne. James's twin cousins, both entering their sixth year at Hogwarts, were technically still a half year short of being of age with their January birthdays, but they helped their parents here at the shop ( _Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes – fair follies for your funny bone!)._ And most times, their help in easing the workload was worth the nominal risk.

James raised his wand and aimed it carefully. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Nothing.

James redoubled his grip.

Still nothing.

"What?" James snapped, looking at his wand, now furious at himself. He'd snuck a few tries at magic, and this wasn't the first time this had happened. "Damn it, that's so _basic_ …"

"I've got it," Freddy said, tapping him on the shoulder. " _Wingardium Leviosa!"_

The red box easily left its mooring on the sixth shelf and slowly started to hover downward.

 _CLANG._

The shop's doorbell rang. Freddy whipped around, almost like a trained puppy.

And Freddy's magic, which had been guiding the red box down slowly, gave way to the much less merciful pull of gravity. Freddy realized his mistake and turned back.

"Oh, shi—"

James raised his wand, and thought desperately, _Please don't drop, Aunt Angelina's gonna murder us…_

And somehow, almost as if in response to James's plea, the box stayed aloft. James guided it down…down… down…

Freddy snatched it from the air and James, with a sigh of relief, let the spell wane and lowered his wand.

Freddy was now staring at James with a look of confusion. "Did you just—"

 _CLANG._

Freddy gave a start and tore from the storeroom. James stared at his wand for a second and then followed his older cousin out to the lobby.

By the time James came close enough to the front door, he arrived to find Freddy wrapped very tightly around someone else.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Freddy uttered as the person let him go. Because of the casual clothes, it took James a while to recognize her—

"Greta?" James uttered, ambling forward uncertainly.

"Oh – hi, James." Greta, who hadn't let go of Freddy completely yet, was beaming nearly as broadly as the day a few months ago when Gryffindor's Quidditch (which she had captained) team had won the Cup for the first time in several years. He had never seen her dressed down this much before. She was wearing a green shirt with faded gold trim that looked like she'd had it several years. James recognized the particular shades as being – or at least being close to – the colors of the Holyhead Harpies. Said shirt was also somewhat low cut, exposing rather more of her skin than James had certainly ever seen. Greta looked back at Freddy and said, "So I just got the owl…"

"You _didn't_ ," Freddy replied in an awed whisper.

"I did," Greta answered, smiling a smile a mile wide. "They've made me Head Girl."

"That's brilliant!" Freddy replied, looking like Christmas had come early. He turned around to look at James. "Right?"

James's emotions were mixed. "Yeah. Brilliant. Congrats." Hogwarts rules stated that the Head Boy and Girl, who were supposed to be impartial in their oversight of the student body, could not participate in house-based organizations like the Quidditch clubs. So this announcement, while it was great news for her and didn't come as a complete shock, meant Greta Stanford's time as a Gryffindor Chaser – and their captain – was done.

"So you just got the owl?" Freddy asked. "Why'd you come here first?"

Greta bit her lip.

"Because they told me who they'd picked to replace me as Quidditch Captain."

Freddy's jaw unhinged. So did James's.

"The owl should be along later…" she admitted. "I thought you'd like it better if you heard it straight from me."

Freddy was still in disbelief. "You're serious…?"

"Of course I'm serious," Greta said. "You think I'd come all the way here to lie about something like this?"

She put a hand on Freddy's arm. He was looking down, apparently too overcome with emotion to talk.

"I might have been Captain, but you were the heart and soul of our team last year," she said. "You're going to be great."

Freddy smiled. "You, too."

Greta's hand slid down to Freddy's own. And after an annoyingly long stare (to the point where James, standing in the background completely forgotten, thought, _Get on with it already,_ ) they kissed.

James, feeling younger than his fourteen years, stood there and stared for a moment – not like they cared or even remembered he was in the room anyway. Who had come up with that idea for a sign of affection? _"I like you a lot. Let's mash our lips together."_ It was almost comical, really, the more James thought about it.

Another thought grabbed him by the throat suddenly, and a feeling of loss punched him in the gut – like the sensation of hunger, but much worse. Trying to choke down the awful lump, he turned his eyes away and walked back to the stock cellar.

The to-do list still wasn't finished yet, after all, and they opened in half an hour.

The morning had dawned a bit coolly.

Not for the first time that summer, she had been before everyone else (including the sun itself) to rising. This morning, though, was not like other mornings this summer. Last night, she had slept quite well. No night terrors, no sudden stabs of pain in the foredawn darkness. Just calm, sweet, restful sleep.

The wind kissed the curve of her cheek and the smooth of her pale shoulders and back. She always felt beautiful in this dress – the few times she ever got to wear it. She wasn't allowed to take it to school, though. A thirteen-year-old girl couldn't wear such things in the cold, cruel world outside, after all.

But this place was neither cold nor cruel. Here in Wales, tucked away from all people but the most desperate of wizards. It took something more than magic to make it here, and for many it took nothing less than having nowhere else to call home to want to stay.

She couldn't completely understand that.

Remote as it was, and as horrid the reasoning for being forced to call this place home, it was Eden. Some outside, who knew not the proper name, even called it Paradise. It did seem like a place that only those souls in the rest of death should have been able to enter and abide.

Maybe that was the thing she hated about it the most.

Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe the sins that had become so inextricably connected with her blood were forgotten enough that she and her loved one could venture into the outside world with no fear.

But where, then, would they go? The quaint bustle of wizarding Cardiff? No. Here seemed as good a place as any, for now.

And she would leave when the time came. But that time was not now. Not yet.

"Frieda. You're awake."

The girl winced almost as a reflex. Maybe her hatred of her given name was irrational, she thought. She had, after all, been named for a great-grandmother whom she had never met. But she liked her other name better. It was more her own, and she knew of no one in this or any other era that had it. So, 'outside', that was what everyone called her. Here, though, she was Frieda – little Frieda from the cottage at road's end.

She turned around.

The woman's hair was straight and not Frieda's own shade of red, although no less beautiful. Frieda was thankful her mother – God or gods rest her soul – had been born a twin. Growing up with her aunt meant Frieda would never forget her mother's face. Although her aunt, if asked, would have said that Frieda's mother had been much prettier.

"Are you alright?" the woman asked.

She nodded.

"No nightmares?" She shook her head. "Nothing hurting?" She shook her head again.

The woman smiled. "Things are finally starting to look up, then…"

"Maybe," the girl replied, turning around and gazing out over the balcony. They had a nice view here, across the sparkling pond and out to one of the few roads in the village. Frieda felt a hand on her back and tensed.

She jumped and halfheartedly swatted her aunt's arm away. Her aunt liked to tease her sometimes by running her fingers on her shoulders like the legs of a spider. Her aunt put a hand in her wild, curly, dark red hair, and she tried not to duck away. "Your mother would be proud of you."

The girl heard it probably once a day when she was home. It never quite got old, though.

"You look sad," her aunt said. "I mean… you feel good today, don't you? What's wrong?"

Her aunt knew all of her tells – all those little mannerisms and facial things she did if she was lying, or if something wasn't quite right. "I'm kind of ready to go back."

Her aunt gave a sigh. "I missed the castle sometimes, too. It was a nice place."

"It's not the castle so much," she admitted. "I mean… it's a pretty place, but it's cold. You know how much I hate the cold. I just… I guess I just miss my friends. Or one of them. We sort of… after… back in May…"

She grimaced.

"I think he blames himself for what happened," she reasoned sadly. "I just… I wish I could tell him it wasn't his fault."

"'Him'?" her aunt repeated. "There's a boy?"

"There's a lot of boys," she answered, trying to keep a straight face. "Hogwarts has a lot of boys, and a few of them are my friends."

"But none of them like this one," her aunt said, smiling knowingly.

She cringed, not meeting her aunt's eye. "Aunt Flora…"

"Don't think I haven't noticed," Flora answered. "It's not the first time you've talked about him. But you still haven't told me his name."

The red-haired girl sighed. "James."

"James….?"

"James Potter."

Flora began to laugh – not just a bit. A lot.

"You're making fun of me," the girl whined.

"So does James Potter get to call you Frieda?" Flora teased.

The girl's face grew very hot. "He calls me 'Brynne.' Like everyone else."

"But he's not like everyone else, is he?" Flora asked.

Brynne shook her head. "No."

Flora stroked her niece's head. "I can't say I'm shocked. Fate has a funny way of bringing things full circle."

"I almost don't want to," Brynne confessed. "I don't want to go somewhere just because someone said, 'Go there.' I want to go there because _I_ want to go there."

"Do you not?" Flora asked.

Brynne blushed, and looked down.

"I always thought the first boy I liked would make me feel strange – like I had butterflies in my stomach. He'd make me not able to put sentences together and do stupid things like blush and giggle at everything."

"James doesn't make you feel that way?" Flora asked.

"…No," Brynne admitted. "It's… it's the opposite, really. I can be myself. Whatever I am, he lets me be that."

Flora smiled. "Then what's wrong?"

Brynne frowned. "It's too obvious. I mean… Harry Potter's the one that rescued me from my home and tracked down the people that murdered my parents. And now, it's his son… it's so predictable. It's like someone wrote a script for me and I'm just acting it out. I don't like that feeling."

At this, Flora put her hand on Brynne's head again. She guided the girl into a half-embrace on her shoulder, and kissed her forehead.

"Everything's not so easily tamed, Frieda," Flora said. "Some things, just by their nature, can't be controlled. But just because it's wild doesn't mean it's bad. You of all people should know that. You were as wild as anyone – you'd leave here early in the morning and be gone for hours. You'd come back home with all types of strange stories. You had leaves in your hair and dirt on your dress – and that's if there was any dress left. I must have given half the gold I ever earned to the seamstress. And sometimes, when the weather got hot, I'd catch you swimming in this pond with nothing more than what you were born in—"

"I only did that once!" Brynne exclaimed, an embarrassed blush creeping over her face. Flora gave her a knowing smile, and Brynne's defiant scowl flagged. "…or twice. A summer… a few summers in a row…"

"People always asked why I didn't do a better job controlling you," Flora recounted. "After that incident with the wolf, Madam Moira even tried to have you taken from me…"

"I'm glad you didn't give me up," Brynne replied seriously. She didn't think Moira Beal, the blonde, weathered-looking matron at the hamlet's orphanage was a bad sort. Some of her orphanage children, though, were trouble. One in particular.

"I am, too," Flora replied. "Although, when I was young – still only a girl myself, really – I thought about it, once or twice. Not because I didn't care about you. The opposite, really. I thought you'd be happier, safer…"

"You never wanted anything for yourself?" Brynne asked, surprised to hear the crack in her own voice, and to find that her eyes were suddenly wet. "I know you gave up a lot for me. It doesn't seem…fair."

"Why do you think I'm not happy?" Flora questioned.

"…You didn't want to get married?" Brynne asked.

"'Want' didn't have much to do with it," Flora answered. "It's always about options. Our parents – your grandparents, I mean… they were… well, the Carrow family is – or was – part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Our father didn't really hate wizards that weren't pureblood…. He was proud of being it himself, though. Your mum and I were sort of indifferent, really… but our parents didn't want us dating when we were in school. They said they wanted us to keep focus on our studies, but I think they were really more worried about us mixing with boys that they weren't sure were completely pureblooded. Naturally, the first thing your mother did after we left school was fall in love with a Muggle boy from Swansea." Flora laughed fondly. "Our parents… well, you saw the photograph. Probably one of the more awkward wedding pictures ever taken. They forced your grandfather into a Muggle suit. He wore it well, but he wasn't happy about it in the least bit."

Brynne laughed.

"You could've gotten married, too, right?" she asked. "Even before you took me in, you had, what… six or seven years?"

"I don't know, it was…" Flora sighed. "I was scared of it when I was young. And then you came along and… well, it's hard to get a man's attention when you're raising a baby. Scares a lot of them off. Tia never warned me about that part."

"Well…" Brynne said carefully. "I'm not a baby anymore."

Flora smiled. "I thought you were supposed to be talking to me about _your_ boy troubles."

Brynne looked down.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Flora asked. Brynne, taken aback, looked up at her. "You've got to be. To do or feel things halfway… it's never been in your nature. And this is a very, very big thing to feel for the first time. You must be terrified."

Brynne stared out at the pond thoughtfully, her eyes now following an oddly shaped bird struggling to stay aloft. That was her at the moment, she supposed. Not quite right, maybe even a bit broken – but trying to fly nonetheless.

It took a couple of seconds – mostly because Brynne didn't want to believe it – for her to realize that the 'flying' bird was actually falling, and that it was _not_ a 'bird', but something else entirely.

"What's that?" Brynne asked, pointing at the falling… thing.

Flora looked at it for a moment. Her face fell into an expression of grave concern.

"Follow me," she said. "Now."

She and her aunt both ran (and that was no exaggeration) toward the road on the other side of the pond, and what Brynne saw when they got there almost made her heart stop for a moment.

She only had a working knowledge of body parts. However, she knew more than enough about them to know that human beings only had one knee for each leg. Yet the crumpled mass of man lying in the road had two very obvious bends in his left leg. Not far away were the remnants of a broom, which had exploded into a jumble of twigs and straw, scattered across dirt and grass. From what Brynne could tell of what little was left, the broom had been quite old; that the ground had finished it off was no surprise at all.

"Uncle Flynn!"

A boy scrabbled over to the broken man and started shaking him by the shoulder. He had a mass of sandy hair down to his neck that recalled the developing mane of a young lion. At an angle, Brynne could also see that he was wearing a pair of spectacles that were severely askew, barely hanging on his face.

"Uncle Flynn!" the boy snapped again.

"Don't try to move him," Flora warned. A second later, moving the man proved to be quite unnecessary. He seemed to revive in an instant with a grunt, and in the next instant his body seemed to realize that his leg was broken. He banged the dirt with his fist, snarling some words into it that are best left unquoted.

"Uncle Flynn?" the boy's tone, no longer panicked, queried.

The man found strength to get his mouth out of the dirt and turn his head. "Well… bollocksed that up, didn't we? You look decent enough."

The boy stood up. "Where are we?"

"This is Morgana's Orchard," Flora announced.

"Well, I'll be damned," the man, apparently called Flynn, chuckled painfully. "It _is_ a real place."

"Your leg's broken. Badly," Flora said, frowning.

" _Ah_." Flynn didn't seem too put out by this. "Explains the stabbing pain in my shin. Think you could get me some help? You lot got a Healer around here?"

"Me, when there's a need for one," Flora explained. Flynn started to laugh.

"See?" he choked to the boy. "Told you. 'Born Lester' means 'born lucky.'"

And then he passed out.

Flora tweaked her lips in thought. "Frieda, stay here. I'm going to go home and see if I can find something to set that leg before we try moving him."

And, with a _pop_ , she was gone. The sandy-haired boy knelt by his uncle for a moment, and shook his head. "All this for two hundred effing Galleons…"

He stood and, finally, turned to look at Brynne.

Her jaw unhinged. His did, too.

"You're Rowan," Brynne finally uttered, once she got over her shock. "Rowan Lester."

Rowan Lester was a Gryffindor boy in Brynne's year at Hogwarts. They had never been close or talked much to each other because of that. They'd really had only one conversation at length; it was during their first year. Rowan's remaining family – or so he'd thought – had died in an awful accident. Brynne had suggested that since Rowan's father had been a wizard (which he only found out weeks before arriving at Hogwarts), there might have been some wizard relatives out there that Rowan didn't know about.

Obviously, she had turned out to be right.

That was over a year ago now.

Rowan Lester was a picture of change and transition – moreso, even, than most thirteen-year-olds. There was still a shadow of the staid, public-schooled Muggle boy that had once been his existence. He had grown taller, but looked to be the same weight, giving the appearance that someone had simply stretched him out. His facial features – once you got past the glasses – were handsome, but in the childish way that a very young boy dressed in a suit could be described as 'handsome.'

Rowan recognized her, but didn't speak immediately. He looked away, a bit frustrated with himself. "I'm sorry. I should remember your name, but…"

"Brynne," she replied.

Rowan nodded.

"Brynne," he repeated. "Can't believe I forgot that."

"It's fine," Brynne reassured him. Glancing at Flynn, she commented. "You've obviously had a rough morning. Are _you_ alright?"

"Somehow," Rowan sighed, glancing at the remains of the broken broomstick that had borne them here. "I was always pants at flying, but somehow I managed to get us out of Cardiff…"

Brynne wasn't even going to ask why Rowan and his uncle had been forced to escape Cardiff so quickly.

That was the unspoken rule in Morgana's Orchard if someone arrived hurt or broken, after all. The 'why' of it all wasn't as important as making them whole again.

Not nearly.


	2. Chapter 2: Longbottom, Lily, and Lupin

Chapter 2: Longbottom, Lily, and Lupin

"Aconite…"

He stared at his notes blearily, trying not to think about his encroaching headache. A cough tried to explode from him. He stifled it. It stuck within his throat and burned like hell.

He let out a groan of frustration, kneading his temple. This was getting ridiculous. He was going to have to pick up some Pepperup Potion from the Apothecary first thing tomorrow morning.

The day was getting close, and Neville Longbottom could not afford to be on his back with a cold when it came.

He had been working overtime, trying to finish his lesson plans before the inevitable interruption. Once it happened, he likely wouldn't have a moment to spare. He'd be taking care of both of them. He glanced around his desk, sadly noting the lack of the three glowing spheres that normally adorned any place where he worked. He took them with him to school, and carried them in his cloak back home when he was able to go. But they were no more – destroyed with many of his other possessions in the attack on his life several months ago. He could replace them, of course. He had the money. But it didn't feel the same.

And perhaps, he thought, it did little good to dwell on memorials to the dead, when new life could sprout up any day now.

His eyes turned to the portraits on his desk, his thoughts to the people in them. A blonde woman in a sunshine-yellow wedding dress ( _only her_ , he thought with a chuckle) and her handsome groom, in his best black and white dress robes. Luna and Rolf. They would be the godparents. Neville had debated that point with himself and with his wife for a while. The Scamanders were magizoologists, often traveling out of the country for their work. They were… pleasantly eccentric. Yet – especially after the attack – Neville and his wife both agreed that there were few people they trusted more. Besides, they had twin boys themselves – five years old, if Neville remembered correctly – and those boys, odd as their parents were, seemed perfectly fine. Both were extremely bright children, probably because of their broad exposure to so many strange things. If, for some reason, the worst happened, the child would have a fun, well-traveled childhood with two older adoptive brothers, at the very least.

He smiled at his own wedding photograph. Luna (much younger and unmarried) was there, along with several of the young men he had lived with for years. With a pang, he realized most, if not all, would be in Ottery St. Catchpole tomorrow with their spouses – well, except for Seamus Finnigan, who was _very_ interested in women (and would tell you as much when asked) but hadn't found one that could put up with his personal brand of madness. Or all of the explosions.

Harry Potter was holding a party; he had just celebrated a birthday (which anyone who knew a regular reader of the _Daily Prophet_ would know). Actually, Neville himself had just had a birthday, given that the two had been born within hours of each other. Neville's birthday wasn't in any _Daily Prophet_ announcements, and he was fine with that. In any case, he had declined Harry's party invitation. Harry and the rest of his friends would understand. Hannah was due any day now, and he wouldn't have felt right straying so far away from her.

Once the baby was born and Hannah was well enough, everyone would see enough of the Longbottoms. Neville would make sure of that. After all, Neville and Hannah's remaining blood family was sparse at best. Hannah's mother had been murdered by Voldemort's Death Eaters years ago. Her father remarried not long after the war, which caused a rift between him and Hannah.

As for Neville…

 _Alice Augusta Longbottom._ That was the name Neville had picked for a daughter. Neville's grandmother, Augusta, had passed on several years ago. She was able to see the conferral of his Order of Merlin, his short tenure as an Auror, and his wedding to Hannah. But her health had begun a slow, steady decline since the war ended. For all the pain the war had caused, it – and the responsibility of raising young Neville on her own – had kept her young and vibrant. After it was all over, she simply ran out of things to do. She was still as irascible as ever, but had nowhere to go to outrun her old age. She had even said so herself. She was the one that suggested that Neville, once he'd left the Auror Office, interview for the Herbology position at Hogwarts.

Neville was still having trouble with a name for a son. Which was ironic, because he had always hoped for a son –only, selfishly, because he was the last Longbottom left. But after near twenty years of trying and three separate miscarriages, alive and healthy were the only two things that mattered to him now.

Even if he had to deal with the awkwardness of the baby not having a name for a few hours because Neville couldn't think of one off the top of his head.

A door behind him creaked open. He looked up from his notes and craned his neck around.

Baby Longbottom, cocooned in the bubble of its mother's belly, preceded Hannah into the room. That Hannah was still walking around – let alone working – as heavily pregnant as she was, was all at the same time a miracle and a source of worry to her husband.

"You know," Hannah sighed, supporting herself against a nearby chair for a moment. "Maybe we should name this baby 'Patience'. It sure is taking its sweet bloody time."

Neville frowned. He'd told her to stop working weeks ago, but Hannah hadn't been able to hire any help earlier. Caring for the Leaky Cauldron wasn't at the top of most job-seekers' preference lists. Not to mention that it had all the look of a temporary position, which wasn't attractive to anyone looking to make a steady income. Finally, though, help had come in the unlikely form of one of Hogwarts' most recent graduates. Heather Stretton was Hogwarts' most recent Head Girl – a Ravenclaw who was a bright student with a strong work ethic. She'd gotten a job with the Ministry not long after graduating, but found within a couple of months that she hated the place – or at least that particular Department. Her boss at the Department of Magical Transportation was a famously uptight sort, and for that reason it wasn't reputedly a great place for a young adult fresh out of school to start a career. Even the Department of Chronicles and Records (or was it Records and Chronicles? Neville never remembered) was more interesting by comparison. And that was saying a lot. But Heather's willingness to work here – at least for a while – made her a no-brainer hire. Even if she was overqualified and likely to bolt for the first Ministry opening, it would be at least enough for Hannah to get through the delivery.

"Where are your keys?" Neville asked.

Hannah sighed heavily. "I gave them to her. I'm done."

Neville resisted the urge to smile.

"She's picked enough up so she can survive without me for a while," Hannah said, sitting down on the bed. "I mean… she was Head Girl, right? After looking after a few hundred teenagers, a couple dozen drunks on a Saturday night shouldn't be much trouble. I mean… you just make sure nobody fights, shags, or lets any bodily function loose on the floor. It's basically the same thing."

Neville laughed, which caused his cough to flare up.

"That's getting bad, love," Hannah noticed and said, frowning.

"I'm getting something for it tomorrow," Neville reassured her.

Hannah had gotten stuck working as a barmaid after she'd graduated, too. By her second year, she feared nothing – because she had seen everything.

"So…" Hannah asked as Neville left the table to sit by her side. "Got one for a boy yet?"

"Nope," Neville admitted.

Hannah sighed, rather overdramatically. "You're overthinking things. Why not just name him Neville, junior?"

"Because I don't want to name a son after me," Neville replied, a bit louder than he'd meant to out of frustration. "I told you that already. It's bad enough he'd have to be my kid. I don't want to saddle him with the exact same name as mine."

"What's wrong with your name?" Hannah asked, tracing her finger around his chin. "Neville Francis Longbottom?"

"Nothing," Neville clarified. "But… I don't want him to be pressured by being my son." 

"Oh, really?" Hannah queried almost teasingly. "I thought you weren't a big deal."

"I'm _not_ ," Neville sighed. "But everyone else thinks I am – and that's the problem."

Hannah paused for a moment. "…Augustus? What about Augustus?"

Neville tilted his head. "Augustus Longbottom."

"'Gus' for short," Hannah added.

"I don't like the nickname 'Gus'," Neville deadpanned. "Rhymes with 'pus' or 'fuss.'"

Hannah slapped his arm and laughed. "No, but really… Augustus isn't a half bad name. It's regal. An emperor of Rome called himself Augustus. That's probably where your great-grandparents got it when they named your gran."

"I thought it was just because Gran was born in August," Neville pointed out.

"Also named after the same emperor," Hannah pointed out.

"Where do you get all this?" asked Neville.

"I read," Hannah said simply. "Cauldron gets slow during the day. In any case… I think it's a girl. A lazy girl, who has no sense of urgency and wants me to be pregnant for a full year."

"Hey." Neville took his wife's hand. "No complaining, remember? We've waited almost twenty years for this. Another week or two is easy."

"Speak for yourself," Hannah answered, leaning over onto Neville's shoulder. "You're not the one that has to carry it – _or_ push it out later, mind."

Neville could only chuckle in defeat. "You've got me on that one."

They sat there in silence for a long while. Years upon years ago, it was during the conversations that Neville had started to fall in love with her. But it was in the silences just like this one that Neville realized that this was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. And it had proven useful. There had been days, many days along this life journey with her, that words fell short to describe whatever they were feeling at the time.

The first two times, Hannah cried for weeks. But it was the most recent one, almost two years ago now, that had been the roughest and most painful. They were in their thirties and Hannah had seen it as her last real chance. When they lost the baby, Hannah spoke to no one for several days. Looking back, it might have been a good thing. She'd said later that she had been willing to let him go, or even go away herself, if it meant he could find a wife that could give him children.

That was why silence was good sometimes. Some things, thought in the heat of the moment, were better left unsaid.

"So…" Hannah finally spoke, putting her hand on Neville's knee. "You're still working on lesson plans."

"I'm a teacher," Neville said. "It's my job. And school starts in a month—"

"You're not really going back in September, are you?" Hannah asked. "Really, I'd prefer you not go back at all…"

"What else am I supposed to do?" asked Neville. "Especially now. The students need me."

"Our baby needs you!" Hannah exclaimed. " _I_ need you. Don't you remember why you left the Auror Office in the first place? Why I even asked you? We wanted to have children. And I didn't want our child to face having to grow up without his father like you and I did!"

Neville used to rise with Hannah whenever she got emotional like this. He'd figured out years ago, though, that it wasn't helpful.

"Hogwarts isn't the Auror Office," Neville said.

"You're not safe there either, obviously," Hannah answered. "Don't you remember what happened in May?"

"Of course I remember what happened in May," Neville replied, a bit irritated. "It happened to _me_."

"All the things I've been hearing…" sighed Hannah. "I can't imagine Hogwarts will be a nice place to be right now."

"That's part of the reason I've got to go back," Neville sighed. "At some point. Wenster's acting Head of House while I'm gone. He's not a bad person, I guess, but… set in his ways. He'd make the problems that are already there worse."

"And why is that our problem?" asked Hannah. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound selfish, but… I just…"

Neville heaved another sigh. "She trusted me. Professor McGonagall. She wanted me to help bring some of the change that she couldn't. The school governors fought her tooth and nail when she wanted to appoint me as Head of Gryffindor and demote Wenster. They said I lacked experience and that I was too close to the students. They said they weren't sure about what would happen when I decided I wanted a family. And they were right about all of it."

"Well, to hell with the governors," Hannah said. "Honestly. And since when have you been wrapped up in trying to impress people?"

"It's not about them, it's…" Neville trailed off. "I wasn't hired because I could be a great Herbology teacher, Hannah. She wanted me and the others to be there for things like this. To keep something like _Gladius Leo_ from ever happening again, to maybe steer some students off from a bad path, the way she couldn't. The reason I'm still there is the reason I was still there twenty years ago. To unite the school and keep the innocent safe from any dark forces within it."

"It sounds very heroic when you put it that way," Hannah answered. "I'll bet Professor McGonagall didn't realize one of your students would try to murder you on the job. Why couldn't you have overpowered him? I mean, it sounds brutal, but… with all _your_ experience? And it would have been self-defense. Not even the Wizengamot would've—"

"My guard was down, alright?" Neville asked. "I'm not an Auror any more. Didn't you get sick of me pulling a wand on you every time you walked into a room? I didn't—"

The rest of his sentence choked in his throat.

"I didn't want to think a student would be capable of doing what Claudius did," Neville admitted. "Especially not then. I mean… I thought I was getting through to him. That last detention was going to be all he saw of me. But that night he wasn't himself and he just… snapped. There's so much I don't know…"

"Well…" Hannah said, grabbing hold of his arm. "He's in Azkaban, right? So he can't bother you anymore."

"I don't know if that's right, either," Neville answered. "The one thing I do know… I have to go back before too long."

Hannah sighed. "I know. I know you can't just… not go back at all. But just promise me… two months. Wait two months, and then you can go back."

Neville thought about it for a moment. "It's a deal. Two months."

Hannah looked down, rubbing her belly. "You know… I don't think I would have been ready when we were twenty."

Neville remembered himself as a twenty-year-old and had to smile. "Me, neither."

Hannah looked up at Neville, her eyes brimming. "I'm almost forty now. I still don't think I'm ready. I have no idea what I'm doing. If only…"

She trailed off, her face contorted suddenly, and she put her hand to her mouth, letting out a sob. Hannah's mother had died years ago, killed by Death Eaters at the behest of Voldemort for reasons no one had figured out to this day. Twenty-plus years of time had dampened the blow of the loss, and up until recently, whenever she spoke of her mother, it would be with a wistful smile on her face. Recently, though, her grief was painful and sharp, as if the terrible thing had only happened days ago. At first Neville, not knowing any better, blamed it on the pregnancy. He realized later he was only half right – only after it occurred to him that he himself was going to be a father soon, had no idea how to actually do such a thing, and had no father of his own to ask for advice.

Now, though, all he could do was pat his crying wife on the shoulder – he dared not get _too_ close because of the cold he felt coming on – and say:

"We'll do it together. Just like we've done everything else."

Ginny Potter had outdone herself this year.

Lurid, obnoxious, magically floating balloons. Lightning bolts, black-haired heads with glasses (but no eyes), the number 39... a house that was filled with aunts and uncles and cousins and other guests.

Lily liked people well enough – but with so many relatives calling at such a time, she was growing rather weary of answering the same questions with the same well-rehearsed answers. And Fiamma (the ginger bundle of feline fur squirming mightily in her tight grip) didn't do well with crowds of strangers. Lily bit her tongue through the presentation of gifts. She'd never been able to think of anything to get him. After all – what did an eleven-year-old girl with no Galleons of her own get the most famous wizard in Britain… even if that wizard was her father?

"It's nice, I guess…" Dad was presently responding to Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, who had apparently given him a set of what looked suspiciously like potion-making equipment. "But what would I use this for?"

"Hobby? Wasn't my idea, mate," Uncle Ron said, angling his head toward his impatient-looking wife. Aunt Hermione wrinkled her nose.

"No book?" Dad asked with a smirk, looking straight at Aunt Hermione. Lily, meanwhile, was looking at the sparkling candles on her father's humongous birthday cake. She half hoped the entire thing would catch fire. That might add some excitement to this somewhat dull portion of the afternoon. But then, she thought sadly, she wouldn't get any cake. She rather liked cake.

"It's on backorder," Aunt Hermione said, looking needled.

"Backorder? Where did you get this stuff from?" Mum piped in.

"Paris," muttered Aunt Hermione, almost as if hoping no one could hear her.

" _Paris_?" Mum repeated loudly. "How—"

"Bill and Fleur," Aunt Hermione said. "It's from all of us, really."

Uncle Bill, Aunt Fleur, and Lily's cousins by them – Victoire, Dominique, and Louis in that order – were conspicuous by their absence. They were on holiday in France with Aunt Fleur's family.

Lily tried to hide a sigh of relief as her mother finally revealed her own gift – it looked like a clock from where Lily was sitting.

"So I can worry about you lot from work?" Dad asked, half jokingly.

"So you can _stop_ worrying."

Lily, noticing that her brothers were already gone, decided at this point to try her luck with leaving the table. She made it a few steps – no one said anything.

Behind her, though, she heard, barely above a whisper: "You'll get the other part once we get rid of all these visitors."

It was a good thing that she wasn't sitting at the table any longer. The look of disgust on her face got there almost without her permission.

"What's that face for?"

A couple of arms gripped her.

"Mum's talking about giving Dad a gift," Lily said, recognizing the voice. "The private kind."

"What's wrong with that?" The arms spun her around by her shoulders. She'd grown taller since the last time they'd seen each other, but Lily still felt so small next to Teddy Lupin's almost unnatural lankiness. She wondered if he was making himself taller than he really was just to make her look tiny. "How do you think _you_ got here?"

"You've never walked in on them," Lily said darkly, shuddering. It had been three years since _that_ little incident, and it left her with an image she was still trying to scrub from her brain.

"That's very true," Teddy admitted.

Motivated by boredom, she followed Teddy outside.

"So… one month left," he said after they had walked the meadow between the Potter House and the Burrow for a few minutes.

"One month too long," Lily replied. Not two weeks ago, her parents had taken her to Diagon Alley to purchase her wand. Eight inches, dogwood and dragon heartstring. ("Whimsical but stout," Ollivander had described it… whatever that meant.) The only thing about that was that it meant that she got a full seven or eight weeks to look longingly at her wand, hold it, imagine, make the end light up with _Lumos,_ and not much else.

"I'm tired of being the only one left here when everybody goes off," Lily went on. Pointing accusingly at Teddy, she added, " _You_ haven't even been coming over for supper anymore."

"I've been busy," Teddy replied. "You know that bloke Stone that was working with me and Mel?"

Lily and her parents had ducked into Quality Quidditch Supplies to see Teddy on that warm July day when they had gone to get her wand. 'Stone' was a massive mountain of a youth a bit younger than Teddy, fresh out of Hogwarts. Lily gave him a wide berth – Stone seemed to be boiling at a mild simmer as he busied himself with hauling boxes of Quidditch balls around. Because of their magical properties (particularly the Bludger's tendency to try to kill everyone in the room) transporting them by magic was unsafe at best. 'Mel' was a brunette lady, about Mum's age, tousle-haired but pretty (not as pretty as Mum, though). Mum and Dad struck up a conversation with her as well – apparently they had all played Quidditch together at some point way back when.

"Stone made it onto Pride of Portree's reserve Quidditch team. Portree's Keeper got a cracked skull from an off-target Bludger, so they sent him an owl. Now it's just Mel and me. I was always good at explaining the different broom brands, but now I've got to haul these bloody great crates around the shop. And I'm not part-giant like Stone was."

"Was he really part-giant?" asked Lily curiously.

Teddy shrugged his shoulders. "Never asked him about his family. Wouldn't surprise me, as big and as strong as he is… anyway, running the shop with just two of us…"

Teddy shook his head.

"Where are James and Al?" he asked.

Lily shrugged. "Al's off somewhere with his girlfriend."

Teddy raised an eyebrow. "Wait, what?"

"Don't ask him about her, he'll probably say she's not," Lily deadpanned. "That's what he tells me because he still thinks I'm a little kid. But you can tell he likes her by the way he looks at her. I know what that look means. It's the same way you look at Victoire."

Teddy smiled knowingly, but the smile was not a full one. Clearly he missed Victoire. "I love Victoire. You know that. If I wasn't so bloody skint…. Anyway, what about James?"

"James? I don't know what his problem is," Lily said. "He's changed. He stays shut up in his room all the time, doesn't talk much. He used to prank Al and I all the time, but he doesn't even do that anymore."

"Hmm," Teddy droned. Then, obviously trying to change the conversation to a lighter topic, he asked, "So? What house do you think you'll be in?"

"Gryffindor, of course," Lily said. "I mean… I'd hope so. My whole family's been in Gryffindor – well, almost all of them."

"Louis was sorted into Ravenclaw like Victoire, right?" Teddy asked. "Maybe you'll end up there. You're clever enough."

"…Mum and Dad say it doesn't matter to them, but… I couldn't picture being in another house, away from everyone else."

"You can't be attached at the hip to Al and James forever, you know," Teddy pointed out.

"Easy for you to say," Lily sort of snapped. "You were an only child."

An awkward silence.

"I'm sorry," she added after Teddy didn't speak for a while. "I didn't mean it like…"

Teddy put a hand atop her head. "I know what you meant. I wish sometimes my parents were still around… and they lived long enough to raise me and maybe give me a little brother or little sister. But I've got Uncle Harry, and Aunt Ginny, and Victoire, and you lot… so it didn't turn out so bad."

"And you're going to marry Victoire one day, right?" Lily asked. "One day soon?"

Teddy chuckled. "I'm working on it."

"What do you mean, 'working on it'?" Lily asked impatiently. "Why can't you just buy a ring and ask her? I'm sure she'll say yes."

"Do you even know how much a ring costs?" Teddy laughed. "It's not as easy as going into Diagon Alley and plopping down a couple of spare Sickles. Those things are wicked expensive."

"Well, try to hurry up," Lily said, folding her arms. "And when you set a date, try to do it during the summer. I want to be there to see, and I can't do it if I'm away at school."

"I'll keep that in mind," Teddy answered. "Now… how about seeing if we can't find your brothers?"

Lily grinned.


	3. Chapter 3: Cross

Chapter 3: Cross

A mighty yawn escaped the mouth of James Potter.

James had come to King's Cross station in London to board the train for the start of the school year three other times. It was supposed to be a routine thing by now. Arrive, slip through the portal to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters as inconspicuously as possible, see a few people you hadn't seen in several months, and find a compartment when it was your turn, all in time for the Hogwarts Express to depart at eleven o'clock on the dot.

But the rules had changed. There were extra security measures now. (Hit wizards, among other things, according to their father) And that meant that while the train still departed at eleven (with or without you), everyone was advised to be on the platform no later than half past ten.

"Step lively, you lot, or you'll be left behind," their father said for not the first time, glancing back and around them. Fiamma, Lily's ginger-furred cat, yowled in protest at being caged atop her trunk.

"I know, I know – I'll let you out soon," Lily reassured her pet, who opened her mouth toothily and unreasonably wide in what also looked like a yawn.

It wasn't that quarter-after-ten was particularly early… but the current weather (very rainy and a bit cool for September) had a draining effect on people. Even the Muggles were shuffling along much more slowly than usual.

James looked around in an attempt to catch a glance of someone he knew. He looked behind himself, too, and that was where he saw, in long rain coats, two dark-skinned ladies – one much younger than the other. Actually, if he'd had to guess, he would have guessed that the younger of the two was still a girl in her teens, and the older was her mother. Why did they seem vaguely familiar…?

CRUNCH.

James jolted and wheezed as his trunk came to a sudden and forceful halt against the edge of one of the solid brick platform barriers. The handle he'd been using to push his trunk sank into his belly and drove the wind from him.

And, of course, several people, including his family, all turned to look.

" _James!"_ his mother said, cringing. "Look where you're going!"

James groaned and accelerated his trunk around the solid barrier for Platform Eight.

It was not long before they arrived at the brick post in question.

Lily was first in line with their mother. She was wheeling her trunk around to face the barrier. ("Oh, _shut it!_ " she snapped at Fiamma, who affected her best pathetic mewl in an attempt to evoke some pity)

"Now, what you want to do is to get perfectly straight," their mother was advising her. Lily took a patient breath. "If you're nervous, we can go in toge—hold on a second!"

But Lily was already off. She and her trunk disappeared a second later, into what appeared to the naked eye to be solid brick.

Their parents looked at each other. Dad grinned.

"Dad," Albus spoke up, sounding like he'd just realized something. "Where are Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione? Hugo's supposed to be starting this year, too, right?"

Their father grimaced.

"Uncle Ron's got them running late, more than likely," he commented.

"I don't think so," their mother answered. "Hermione wouldn't allow that. Neither would Rose, for that matter."

"Good point," Albus mused seriously before starting through the barrier himself.

James wordlessly started toward the platform until a forceful arm held him back. It was his father, who leaned down into his ear.

"Make sure you keep an eye on Lily, huh?" his father requested. "She's putting on a brave face for everyone, but she's really quite nervous."

"Yeah," James replied. "What if she gets Sorted somewhere else?"

"Does that change anything?" his father asked.

James's answer took him all of a second. "No." _I'll just have to work a bit harder, is all._

"Either way, you're not going to be able to count on Neville," his father said. James frowned, only having just remembered again. The announcement had come not two weeks ago now, in a short blurb in the _Daily Prophet_ over breakfast, that Neville Longbottom and his wife, Hannah, had welcomed a healthy baby girl. Alice Augusta Longbottom was her name. It was going to be a good while before Neville Longbottom was at Hogwarts again. "The acting Head of House is this… Professor Wenster. I think you've had him for Transfiguration, right?"

James nodded.

"I don't know him well, but he doesn't seem like a friendly sort, and he's one of the old guard. I'd do my best not to get on his bad side if I were you. And whatever you do – _James, look at me._ " James looked his father in the eye. "Don't get in over your head. Stay out of trouble, especially with Malcolm."

Professor Malcolm was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Head of Hufflepuff House. To massively oversimplify things, he and James didn't see eye to eye.

"Right," James said, finding this repeated instruction a bit grating.

Fortunately, his mother rescued him. "Harry, we need to hurry up."

James didn't need telling twice. He pushed his trolley straight at the barrier. Several times he'd played a game of chicken with this trick wall, trying not to close his eyes as he approached. Several times he had lost. This time, he won, only to find out that it did no good – the passageway between Muggle and wizard worlds was blacker-than-pitch-black darkness. It was so dark that, when James emerged on the other side, he found himself needing to squint for a moment, the dim light of the real world appearing blinding by comparison.

Once his eyes had readjusted, he glanced at his surroundings and noticed several differences from last year. Several uniformed gentlemen (and at least one lady) in dark blue outfits dotted the station, wands at the ready. Signs had been erected on the platform, directing students of certain houses in certain directions. Almost predictably, Gryffindors and Slytherins were going to be on opposite ends of the train. James's heart sank somewhat. As he looked around, he noticed that students were clustered in groups.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" a voice asked. James jumped.

" _God!_ Do you ever warn anybody?" groaned James as he stepped backward.

"I move quietly." The girl that had appeared next to him in a hooded, blue raincoat shrugged. "You haven't seen Richard, have you?"

"I just _got_ here. Ten seconds ago," James replied, a bit irritated. "'How was your summer, James? Do anything interesting?' Nope. 'To hell with James. Where's Richard?'"

"Would you really want me to ask those sorts of questions?" the girl replied, removing the hood on her coat to reveal longish, blonde hair. "I already know your summer sucked."

James didn't know whether to be angry at her for a moment. He opted for 'mildly peeved.'

"You always know everything, don't you, Serra?" he asked sarcastically.

"I don't know where Richard is," Serra said. "That's why I'm asking you. I wanted to talk to him before they funneled all of us off to our slaughter pens."

"Don't you think you're being a little dramatic?" James asked.

"James!"

James had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He turned to find his parents approaching, and quickly.

"Where are Albus and Lily?" his father asked immediately.

"Never saw them," James replied truthfully. "I think they might have gotten on the train already."

"You were supposed to keep sight of them," his mother interjected.

James was right about to open his mouth to defend himself (and probably get slapped in the face) when his father bailed him out.

"I'm sure they're fine, Ginny. I mean… look at… Merlin's pants. What's the story with all these hit wizards?"

"We knew there'd be extra security," his mother commented. His father looked somewhere between appalled and furious.

"Extra security?" he repeated incredulously. "A quarter of London's force must be here at the station. For God's sake, these are kids, not criminals."

"Now that you mention it," his mother replied, sweeping her eyes across the station, "this _does_ seem a bit over the top."

"So, James," his father turned to him and Serra. "I see you've made a new friend."

"Not new, really…" James muttered, but Serra was out in front of him.

"Serra Paxton," she introduced herself politely, shaking hands with both of James's parents in turn. His father's eyes widened perceptibly.

"Paxton… couldn't be… _this_ grown up?" Harry Potter uttered, astonished. "I haven't seen you since you were about knee-high. How old are you now?"

"Fourteen," Serra answered.

"So you're going into fourth year just like James. Merlin's beard. I can't believe it's been that long," Harry remarked. "What house are you in?"

"Ravenclaw," Serra replied proudly.

"Doesn't surprise me one bit," Harry answered. "Not if you're anything like your father…"

A chime rang.

" _Attention all Hogwarts students: the time is now ten-fifty. Please proceed to your designated areas on the train. The Hogwarts Express will be leaving at eleven o'clock sharp. Again – attention all Hogwarts students…"_

Serra grit her teeth. "Sod, we're out of time. Listen, if you see Richard at any point, let him know –"

"I'm not gonna be your owl," James interrupted her. "If you two have stuff to work out…"

"It's nothing to do with that. I just thought he should know… Brynne, too, if you get to her before I do…"

Exactly what this was, James didn't get to find out quite yet. A blur of red hair came flying past him.

"What are you doing?" his mother called, seeing Lily running toward her. "You've got to get on the train!"

But Lily didn't listen; she ran headlong at her mother, buried her head in her jacket and started to cry very loudly.

 **Albus**

Albus looked up as the door to his compartment opened.

There stood a pale-skinned boy with frizzy auburn curls for hair, clutching a stitch in his side.

"Sorry," he breathed. "I tried to stop her."

"It's fine," Rose said, tapping the seat next to her, indicating where her little brother should sit down. "Aunt Ginny will get her back on the train somehow… hopefully."

Albus heard the doubt in Rose's voice, and wondered if she knew (or at least sensed) what he knew. Both he and James loved and were loved by their mother dearly, but Lily and their mum had a special bond – unique, Albus guessed, to mother and daughter. As much as Lily complained about being left alone when the boys went off to school, and as excited as their mother was about seeing Lily finally start at Hogwarts, the fact was that neither one was completely ready to be without the other yet. The first few weeks, Albus knew, would be rough. Lily took after Mum, of course; strong and brave, with flaming red hair and brown eyes. She'd be fine, eventually.

Eventually.

"I couldn't wait to be shot of my mother," Sylvia piped in from Albus's left. She'd let him have the window seat even though he had offered it to her. A gentlemanly gesture, he thought. Somewhat unfortunately for him (although he shouldn't have been surprised), Sylvia Thomas wasn't the type of girl to melt over a single act of chivalry. Not that Albus was going out of his way to get Sylvia to 'melt' for him. Nope. Not at all. Sylvia was a friend of his going all the way back to first year. A friend. Who happened to be a girl. And a girl who happened to be very, very pretty.

"I can see why. You two act just alike." Scorpius Malfoy looked somewhat different than what Albus had remembered last of him. First off, he had long since passed up Albus in the height department. Again, this wasn't much surprise. His father was tall and very thin, and he as the spitting image of his father could safely be expected to end up the same way. Second, his lengthening hair had started to wave a bit. It wasn't nearly as curly or messy as Hugo's, but neither was it perfectly straight anymore. The curls, he'd explained to Rose a bit earlier, came from his mother's side of the family – and although they appeared to have skipped a generation (both his mother and aunt had straight hair), Scorpius got them a bit, and his younger cousin, Lena (in her locks of darkest jet black) got them a lot.

"Do not!" Sylvia protested. Her hair was dark, wildest and frizziest of all of them. Mercifully, though, she'd bunched it back in a bushy ponytail so as to not endanger anyone's face.

Scorpius just sat back in his seat and smirked.

Two thumps came at the compartment door, which slid open a moment later.

"Everyone alright?" A pretty, older blonde girl with a Gryffindor Prefect badge gleaming on her robes appeared in the threshold. Hugo grinned and waved at her. "Hey, Hugo." Her face fell. "Where's Lily?"

"She went to go say goodbye to Mum," Albus explained.

The older girl's face fell into an expression of worry as she turned her wrist to investigate a small watch. "Oh. Well, hopefully, she's back on the train somewhere. We've got three minutes until we take off. I've got to go – we're supposed to be meeting right at eleven when the train leaves."

She went to depart, but Rose yelled after her. "Dominique, wait!"

The blonde girl stopped for a moment.

"It looks good on you," Rose said.

Dominique Weasley grinned and shut the door behind her.

Not long afterward, just as the final call sounded, Lily appeared back in the compartment, plopped down at one of the seats and buried her face in her hands. Hugo quickly put an arm around her shoulder. Albus frowned and tried once again not to hate his younger cousin.

Okay, it wasn't so much that Albus _hated_ Hugo, or even disliked him; sometimes, though, he wondered if Lily considered Hugo a better brother than either him or James. And Albus wasn't entirely sure if he liked that idea. He supposed it was somewhat natural, though. He and Rose, since they were born around the same time, were very close. Likewise, Lily was close with Hugo. Although, unlike Albus and Rose, where Rose was several months older, Hugo and Lily were mere weeks apart, with Lily having a birthday in early December and Hugo celebrating his right after the new year. They were also much closer in personality. Both were energetic young children that liked to laugh and had a penchant for small-scale mischief. As toddlers, they had started Showing their magic at about the same time, too, resulting in an incident where both of them ended up on the top shelves of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes' stock closet.

Just about the whole trip was dreary and rainy. Almost predictably, they started to nod off one by one. Rose had fallen asleep against the window, her face smashed oddly against the wall. Albus tried not to laugh at her. Lily had gone to sleep on Hugo's shoulder – how, Albus wasn't sure. Hugo's snores seemed to be shaking the whole compartment.

"This year's going to be…" Sylvia muttered and shook her head. "It's bad enough we're stuck with Wenster as our Head of House until Longbottom gets back. But _no_ Unity Weekends – can you believe Flitwick even did that?"

"Uh…yeah," Scorpius said, as if he couldn't believe Sylvia was asking this question in the first place. "The Slytherins almost murdered our Head of House last year."

" _One_ Slytherin," Albus corrected his friend – but he shrugged.

"It's all the same to a lot of people," Scorpius said. "What's the big deal? The Veil isn't going to be up this year, so I guess the only difference is that we can't stay over in each other's dorms."

"The Hogsmeade trips are cancelled, too, remember?" Sylvia groused. "That's the worst part, I think – it's like they're punishing the whole school for what one person did."

Scorpius grimaced. "I guess they thought somebody would use the trip as a chance to get back at the Slytherins – only two Professors normally go and the students are scattered all around the village."

"Still doesn't seem fair," Sylvia answered. "Who knows? Maybe it'll only be for a couple of months, and things will be back to normal again."

Scorpius gave a wordless utterance of halfhearted agreement. "You know, I noticed a couple of odd things when Mum and I got to the platform."

Scorpius had mentioned before that his mother had brought him alone this time; his father had not made the trip with them.

"Besides the dozen Hit Wizards standing around?" Sylvia asked sarcastically. "I think one of them had a Probity Probe… gotta wonder exactly what the hell he was thinking of doing with _that…_ "

Scorpius ignored Sylvia's dark mutterings. Either he did not find wizards with Probity Probes odd, or they simply weren't interesting enough to mention. "Rowan Lester was here when Mum and I got here."

"Well, that's not 'odd'," said Sylvia. "He's _supposed_ to be here, isn't he?"

"It wasn't him, it was who he was with," Scorpius clarified.

"He lives with his uncle now, right?" Sylvia queried.

"Will you let me finish?" Scorpius asked sharply. Albus, unable to restrain himself from instinct, made a quick but silent pat-down motion with his hand. When Scorpius glanced at him in confusion, Albus responded by pointing out all three of his sleeping family members. Scorpius gave a sigh and a half-grimace as a wordless apology. "Yes, Rowan was there, but he didn't show up with his uncle. His uncle wasn't there at all. It looked like he showed up with Brynne Walter and her mother."

"Couldn't have been her _mother_ ," Sylvia argued. "Her mum's dead. You don't know that story? Her parents were murdered when she was only a couple of years old. It was one of the worst crimes in Wizarding Britain this side of Voldemort."

"Well, it was some red-haired witch," Scorpius answered. "I figured it was her mum. She and Brynne looked a lot alike, enough that they could've been related. Maybe an aunt or something?"

"What was Rowan doing with them?" asked Sylvia. "Especially the way things are right now?"

"No idea," Scorpius replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But he and Brynne seemed to be getting on well. They were talking. I had no idea they were ever that close. Never saw them around each other much in school. Speaking of people we haven't seen…"

He stopped, uncommonly aware of the impact of his next statement and oddly milking the pregnant pause for all it was worth.

"Do you both remember Lilith Cross?" he asked.

For several seconds, there was no noise inside the compartment except for the rumbling of the railcars and the incessant tapping of raindrops against the window to Albus's right.

Sylvia's jaw dropped. "You're yanking my wand."

Scorpius shook his head. "I don't forget faces. She's older now, obviously, but… I'm pretty sure it was her."

Albus, Sylvia, and Scorpius hadn't seen Lilith Cross in well over a year. She had withdrawn from Hogwarts under mysterious circumstances (leaving only her older sister, who had since become a Prefect) at the end of her first year. Since then, whispers had gone around the school saying that she'd had something to do with the fire in the Great Hall that year that had nearly killed several students. Rumors were only rumors, though, and even if they had been true, Albus thought, it was almost certainly a case of Lilith, who had been a first year like them at the time, experimenting with magic a bit over her head and causing a horrible accident. Surely a first-year girl with no known ill will toward anyone hadn't _meant_ to set the Great Hall on fire with most of the student body inside…

"Maybe they had some mercy on her," Sylvia remarked. "Decided to let her back in."

"I don't think Hogwarts had anything to do with her leaving in the first place," Scorpius answered.

Truth was, nobody knew anything about what had happened to Lilith Cross after their first year. She was somewhat nondescript, even as Hufflepuffs go – a random girl with few, if any, close friends. She was closest of all with her older sister, Laurel.

"Her sister, Laurel…" Scorpius remembered at that moment, almost as if he'd read Albus's mind. "Wasn't she seeing Freddy at one point?"

"I think so, yeah," Albus didn't see Freddy very often his first year, but in many of the glimpses he saw, Laurel Cross was not far away. But they had fallen apart at some point that year, if Albus remembered correctly. Realizing that this was the perfect opportunity to break some news, he added, "Not sure if you heard, but he's going to be Quidditch captain this year."

"I know. I ran into Greta on the platform," Sylvia answered. "I don't envy her this year – or the Head Boy, for that matter. Do we know who it is?"

"The Head Boy?" Scorpius asked. "Not sure. It's not Tommy Jordan, though. When I saw him, he just had a normal Prefect's badge."

"Huh," Sylvia mused, sounding somewhat disappointed. "I thought he might have made a fair Head Boy."

Scorpius frowned. "I'll bet someone didn't want the Head Boy and Head Girl to both be Gryffindors. Makes no sense – Head students have to be neutral. They almost don't even count as members of their own Houses. That's why you can do Quidditch captain or Head student, but you can't be both."

"Well, I'd definitely be Quidditch captain if I had to pick," Sylvia remarked. "Who wants to spend all their time enforcing stupid rules?"

Scorpius grimaced. "Your dad, apparently."

Sylvia winced. Her father, Dean, was the Flying instructor at Hogwarts and also served as the arbiter for the Quidditch matches. Quidditch had a deceptively thick rulebook, and there were nearly seven hundred fouls an arbiter had to try to remember. "Good point. Have you ever seen the book of fouls, by the way? Some of the stuff in there is sort of mad." Glancing at Albus so it was clear she was talking to everybody, she went on, "Bludger-grubbing. Have you ever actually _seen_ that? How would you grab hold of a moving Bludger? But apparently it's been done before, so they have a foul for it."

Scorpius raised an eyebrow for a moment. "I suppose it makes sense… you can't make things easier on yourself by carrying around one of the Bludgers and keeping it from doing its job. Like you said, though… how you'd catch a moving Bludger without breaking some bones is anyone's guess…."

He leaned back against his seat.

"I'm sort of surprised they're still going through with the season," Sylvia remarked. "Dad's gonna have his hands full when Slytherin and Gryffindor play each other."

"But that's not really new, is it?" Albus finally asked. "Those matches are always one bad foul away from getting out of hand."

"I wonder who their new Seeker will be?" asked Sylvia. "Gettis is playing for Falmouth now. Doing well for himself, too, I heard…"

"Good for him," Scorpius said with a smug expression. Wilmerlin Gettis had been Slytherin's Seeker for the last several years. Many called him the best professional prospect Hogwarts had seen in many years.

Scorpius was Gryffindor's Seeker, had faced Gettis twice, and had beaten him both times.

Scorpius would probably be a player for the British and Irish League in four or five years' time himself. But Albus knew Scorpius would have considered that a disappointment. He wanted to take England, whose national Quidditch teams had historically struggled, to a World Cup championship. Multiple, if his career allowed him the time. He wanted to be nothing less than the best Seeker in the world. Better than Bulgaria's Victor Krum. Better than Brazil's Goncalo Flores (he and his team had lost in the 2014 Final but came back to win in 2018). And Albus, at this point, knew better than to suggest that he couldn't do it.

"Speaking of which, where's your broom?" Sylvia asked.

"Getting looked at," muttered Scorpius, sounding like he didn't really want to talk about it.

"Looked at?" repeated Sylvia. "What did you do to it? Did you crash?"

"Have you ever seen me crash?" Scorpius queried, sounding annoyed. Raising his eyebrows, he explained, "Apparently the way I flew during our final with Ravenclaw is 'too much stress for a twenty-five-year-old broom to be going on with.' It's got a slight roll to the left now. So every time I try to dive…" He made a spiraling motion in the air with his finger. Sylvia grimaced.

"That's not good," she said.

"You think?" Scorpius snapped. He seemed very upset about this broom situation. "They're not even sure if it's fixable. Might be that way for good now, and if so, I'm not gonna be able to use it in a match ever again."

He gazed up at the ceiling, looking morose.

"If all else fails," Albus offered, "you could always get a new one, right?"

"It's not that simple," Scorpius said after a sigh. "Of course I could _get_ a new broom. That's not the problem. I _knew_ that broom. It's all I've ever flown on, really. I knew what it could do, what it _couldn't_ do, how fast it could do it. I knew how fast I could get to full speed, how fast I could stop if needed… how fast I could bank, lift off, dive… and even if I got another Nimbus Two Thousand and One, it's not going to be the same broom."

He grasped at his hair for a moment.

"I'm being selfish, right?" he murmured. "Worrying about brooms with all this other rubbish going on…"

And with no more preamble, he stood and left the compartment.

Sylvia deflated sadly.

"I didn't mean to upset him," she said, surprising Albus a bit. Normally, she didn't have that sort of awareness. She wasn't mean, but she could be somewhat insensitive and tactless at times. "I was only trying to make small talk…"

Albus grimaced. "I don't think Scorpius thinks Quidditch is 'small talk'."

Sylvia let out a sigh. "God, I hope he's not sore at me. I didn't mean anything by it, honestly…"

She swallowed hard and went silent.

"I don't like it," she finally said, in a soft, serious tone of voice Albus had never heard her use before.

"What do you mean?" Albus asked.

"Any of it," Sylvia replied. "It just gives me a bad feeling…"

Albus understood. It was a combination of things – the attack on Neville last year, but also the dodgy things that had happened overall. Ever since the fire, it seemed that there was a pall over the school, and over Albus's friends and family. And Albus, for one, couldn't shake this strange feeling that these weren't just random events – that they were connected somehow, to something or someone that was making them (or at least allowing them) to happen. Maybe it was his being brought up a Potter, knowing all the things his father had gone through during his Hogwarts days…

"It almost feels like we're going off to war or something," Sylvia mused sadly.

"It's not going to be _that_ bad," Albus replied, more to convince himself than anything. "Professor Flitwick and the others will keep things under control."

"I know one thing," Sylvia said, staring at her knees. "If someone wants to try to start a fight with me, I'm not just going to sit there and take it. And I don't want _you_ to, either."

She had looked Albus straight in the eye.

"I hate fighting," he admitted. "I know that sounds strange when my dad basically dueled for a living, but…"

He heaved a sigh and looked away from her.

"You'd think it would be in my blood," Albus mused. "Not just my dad, but my grandparents, and aunts and uncles, too. Half my family was in the Order of the Phoenix when Voldemort was alive."

"You think they liked it?" Sylvia asked. "Fighting, I mean. You think your dad likes it?"

"No," Albus said simply. "He says he does it to keep everyone safe."

Albus heard the rustle of movement and then felt a hand on his left shoulder.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

"Only an idiot's never afraid," Sylvia replied.

But when he looked at her, and she looked back, her lip was trembling a bit.

An unintelligible shout broke the pregnant silence to pieces. Sylvia's brows furrowed.

"What the—?"

Albus looked up toward the door. "Sounds like it's coming from outside."

As he followed Sylvia to the compartment door ("wuzzgoin…?" Hugo murmured as he began to stir from slumber) Albus couldn't help but feel a bit irritated at the timing of the loud interruption. Sylvia had been about to say _something_ important, but the sudden noise had broken her focus. Sylvia went out through the compartment door, ignoring a half-hearted, wordless warning Albus never got the chance to give. Albus, hating himself, took a moment to draw his wand, then emerged as well.

The last time Albus and Sylvia had happened upon a commotion aboard the Hogwarts Express, a Gryffindor boy in their year had found himself accosted by two boys from another House, and the shouting match had ended in violence.

This time, it was two girls from another House, both brown-skinned, and both shouting at _each other_ with Scorpius standing square in the middle.

"You know you're not supposed to be in here," the older of the two, already in her Hogwarts robes, said loudly. The yellow trim on her robes and the badger badge on her chest signaled her as a Hufflepuff Prefect.

The younger girl was toward Albus and Sylvia, behind Scorpius. It had been a while, but Albus knew that face. Her hair was dark, coiled and down to her shoulders, tucked behind her ear with a clip on one side. She was still in a blue rain coat.

"Not even for a short chat?" the younger girl asked. "It's not like I went _into_ one of the Gryffindor compartments—"

"Everyone's got to stay with their House," the Prefect cut her off. "Do you really want to be starting trouble the first day back?"

"By doing something that's been allowed for years?" the younger girl asked. "Yes, because that's causing such a problem. Aren't you supposed to be in a Prefects' meeting or something?"

"Don't be a wise-arse, Lilith," the Prefect said, her eyes flashing. "You don't want to get the Professor's attention…"

"What's the matter, Laurie? Is he afraid of me?" Lilith asked acidly. "Shouldn't be, if he's got nothing to hide, right? But I've known something's off about him, ever since you started going to his 'Remedial Defence' classes. Like anyone was going to buy that one. You had top marks your first four years. I remember, because Mum and _Stewart_ wouldn't stop going on about them— perfect Laurel with her perfect marks. But God forbid you ever got an 'E' or Stewart would give you hell—"

" _Stewart?"_ Laurel sounded appalled. "Show our father some respect, you ungrateful—"

"He's not _our_ father," Lilith said. Then, with a pause, as if aware of how impactful her next statement would be, she added, " _Our_ father actually had balls."

Sylvia was saying nothing, but her – and Scorpius's – jaw visibly dropped at that statement.

Laurel's teeth grit and her eyes narrowed for a moment… but she bit her lip and then smiled. "I'm not falling for it."

"And what's that?" Lilith asked, looking distractedly at her nails as if Laurel wasn't worth the eye contact.

"You're trying to bait me into doing something daft," Laurel said disdainfully. "I'm not falling for it. Professor Malcolm already told me if I've got the makings of a Head Girl next year."

"Yeah, I forgot," Lilith sighed. "It's all about making Laurel Cross Head Girl. 'Screw Lilith. She's just Laurel's little sister, and she's inconvenient, so let's just keep her out of the picture for a while….'"

It became clear at that point that Lilith was clearly not the same girl that had left suddenly at the end of first year. She had seen things – and, apparently, many of them were not good.

"Do you have any idea how lonely it is to be the only witch your age around for miles?" she asked. "When you _should_ be at Hogwarts with the other second years, but you've got to study completely alone because your sister's worried you're going to mess up her chance to be Head Girl, and your father's scared to death of a letter from some 'A.R.' bloke no one's ever heard of. Who the hell is A.R., huh? And why do they care so much about whether or not I'm at Hogwarts?"

"Wh—" Laurel was caught off guard by this revelation.

" _Yes_ , Mum told me. You think she wouldn't?" Lilith queried, with more than a bit of a scoff in her voice. "I knew when we left, it was because she thought I should return to Hogwarts and Stewart said 'no.' He'd have kept me out the full six years if he'd gotten his way."

Laurel pursed her lips. "He was trying to protect—"

"That wasn't protection. It was prison!" Lilith interrupted her.

Laurel paused for a second, but only a brief one. "Are you done yet?"

Lilith glanced up at Scorpius and the others for a moment. Then she walked past Laurel, taking no care to avoid shoulder-checking her on the way by.

"No," she replied as she left. "Not nearly."

Laurel didn't even acknowledge the Gryffindors standing there. She just turned around and followed her sister out of the train car.

No one said anything. Until…

"What was all that noise?" Hugo, his coiling hair matted, emerged from the compartment, looking irritated. "Rose and Lily are trying to sleep and you lot are all shouting at each other like it's a Quidditch match or something! Bloody hell…"

And he slammed the sliding door shut rather forcefully.

"So, Scorpius," Sylvia remarked, trying, as always, to keep the mood light. "I see you've made a new friend."

Scorpius was equal parts amused and nonplussed. "Is that what just happened?"

Indeed, Albus thought, Scorpius had the look of someone who had stepped knee-deep into trouble and was fully aware of it.


	4. Chapter 4: A Flower, Oddly Sown

Chapter 4: A Flower, Oddly Sown

There was a bit more mingling between the students when the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station late that evening. It wasn't to be helped – unlike King's Cross, there weren't Hit Wizards stationed every thirty paces. Hogsmeade Station wasn't nearly roomy enough for that.

James and Albus found themselves herded together like sheep with several others.

"If I found out who did that, I'm cursing his bollocks right off!" a young girl snapped quite loudly.

"Melinda, _calm down!_ " a boy insisted just as loudly.

"Can you two keep it moving?" an irritated-sounding youth asked. "We're trying – _Pike, what the hell!? Get down from there!"_

"Fine, you don't have to yell," a disappointed-sounding boy replied. "Merlin's…"

"You remember what Mum said," another girl followed.

"Mind your business, Corrie," the disappointed-sounding boy replied, now sounding annoyed.

And then another voice – rough, gruff, and as big as the man who owned it – sounded above the rest.

" _Firs' years! Firs' years, yer with me!"_

"Mr. Hagrid!"

From somewhere nearby Albus, a ginger girl carrying a ginger cat emerged from the crushing throng, to run to and stand under a long-haired, grey-bearded, veritable colossus of a man.

"Mr. Hagrid," Lily repeated, breathless with excitement. "You remember me, don't you?"

"Remember yeh? How could I not?" Hagrid laughed, reaching down a hand to gently palm Lily's entire head. Albus couldn't help but wince. Last time Hagrid had tried to pat him on the head, he'd had a headache for several hours. Hilariously, Fiamma was not nearly as keen on the massive half-giant and, yowling in terror, tried to free herself from Lily's grip.

"Ouch – _Fi, stop it!"_ groaned Lily – the cat had just scratched her in an effort to escape.

"Find yerself a boat," Hagrid chuckled. "We'll have plenty o' time ter talk later, assumin' yer nothin' like yer brothers…"

Albus cringed and put his head down. Hagrid was always waiting for visits from the Potter children. They always found themselves a bit busy.

When the time had come late last term for second years to select the elective courses they would start taking in third year, Albus and all of his friends had diverged somewhat. Rose had gone with Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, which Albus could have seen coming a mile away, given that they were the two most difficult electives available. Scorpius and Sylvia had both chosen Divination and Care of Magical Creatures because they had the reputation of being the two easiest electives. (Although, unlike Scorpius, Sylvia was actually somewhat interested in learning about magical creatures.) Albus had heard too many horror stories about Professor Trelawney from his parents, aunts, and uncles; so he was taking Ancient Runes with Rose, and Care of Magical Creatures with Sylvia and Scorpius. He and Hagrid would see enough of each other this year, but now wasn't quite the time.

He made his way (somewhat against his will from people pushing him in the back) down the path to where the carriages were lined up, ready to transport every student second year and older to the castle. As he approached them, though, he noticed something distinctly different.

No, he _still_ couldn't see whatever was pulling them. But he did notice that the outsides of the carriages were colored – some red, some blue, some green, and some yellow.

"These too?" he heard his older brother groan. "Really?"

"Let's get two others before Brookstanton tries to hop in with us," an Irish brogue Albus recognized as belonging to James's best friend, Murphy, sighed.

"Where's Croyle?" James called. "OI! Croyle! Where'd you go, mate? _Damn_ , did we get more students over the summer or something? Why's it so bloody crowded?"

"Guys," Scorpius called. Albus looked up. Scorpius was sitting alone in one of the red carriages, giving a hand motion of urgency. Albus broke from the crowd, bumped a Ravenclaw aside ("Sorry!") and jumped in, joined shortly thereafter by Sylvia and Rose, the latter of whom immediately took her shoe off and started investigating her foot, whilst the carriage's other three passengers looked at her oddly.

"Someone kept stepping on the back of my heels," she explained, wincing. "I think their trainers had spikes on them or something…"

"Punch his face next time," Sylvia suggested casually.

Rose tried to give Sylvia a look of disapproval, but it was obvious in her eyes that, in her current mood, she didn't think it was entirely a bad idea.

She glanced at Scorpius a bit aimlessly. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Don't look at me. _I'm_ not rubbing them."

Sylvia laughed. Albus wasn't sure whether Rose had been trying to make such a thing happen, but he thought she sure looked disappointed as she pulled her shoe back onto her foot.

It was not too long after that, that the carriages started rolling of their own accord. (Well, that was how it appeared. Albus knew it not to be true; he just couldn't see _what_ was pulling the bloody things.) Sylvia heaved a yawn and stretched her arms up and out, directly around Rose.

"You look worried," Sylvia commented, grasping Rose around the shoulder. "Not like you don't _always_ look worried… but, _seriously_ … you're going to go gray by twenty if you keep this up. What's wrong?"

"Just thinking about Hugo," Rose admitted. "He's never liked open water much. Can't swim well."

The first year students, unlike the others, always took their first ride to Hogwarts in the boats that crossed the Black Lake. It was quite a long boat ride over quite a bit of open water.

"What, do you think he'd fall in?" Sylvia asked. "I'm sure the giant squid would put him back. After a couple of minutes."

Scorpius became distracted at looking at something outside the carriage. The expression on his face, though, made it obvious that he was simply trying not to laugh too hard at Rose's expense.

"That's not funny!" Rose exclaimed, the pink tinge of her ears visible even in this silvery-blue moonlight.

"The squid's never killed anyone," Sylvia replied defensively. "Dad says it just likes its fun. Doesn't have many playmates. Apparently, the grindylows are deathly afraid of it and the merpeople are a bunch of arseholes with spears, right?"

"How would I know?" asked Rose.

"Weren't your parents both kidnapped by merpeople once?" Sylvia asked. "That's what Dad told me."

"That's not exactly–" Rose sighed, palming her face. "You're insufferable."

"Sorry?" Sylvia uttered before going to her go-to catchphrase when talking with Rose. "English, please?"

"That _is_ English," Rose repeated wearily, for the first of what was sure to be many times this year. Sylvia laughed.

"So… how do you think they split up the first years?" Scorpius asked.

"How can they?" Sylvia queried. "They don't have Houses yet."

"Yeah, maybe they're better off staying on the other side of the lake," Scorpius muttered cynically, earning himself a look from Rose.

"Don't be such a downer," she said – but Albus could tell it was on her mind as well.

"So, you never told us…" Sylvia queried probingly, a knowing half-smile on her face. "What did you and Lilith Cross talk about?"

Rose's eyes widened. Albus had almost forgotten – she'd been asleep the whole way and hadn't heard the news.

"Wait a second…"

"Didn't get around to much talking, really," Scorpius said. "She just asked if I remembered her and I told her I did…"

He shrugged casually, but he looked rather flustered.

"Wait…" Rose still seemed to be trying to wrap her head around it. "Are you telling me Lilith Cross is back at Hogwarts? _That_ Lilith Cross? The one we knew from first year?"

"Unless Laurel Cross has another sister that we don't know about," Sylvia commented.

"But how?" asked Rose. "She wasn't expelled?"

"I guess not," Sylvia answered skeptically.

"From the sound of it, someone or something convinced Lilith's parents to pull her out of school and keep her out for all of last year," Scorpius said. "But… it sounds like her parents separated. Her mother took her, but Laurel stayed with their father."

"So is she going to be a year behind now?" asked Rose. Sylvia discreetly rolled her eyes. Rose didn't see it. "I mean…"

"Not sure," Scorpius said. "Depends on if she passed her E.E.L.s."

"What?" Sylvia uttered flatly.

"Oh, that's right," Rose sighed, grimacing in frustration at her failure to remember. "The E.E.L. Educational Equivalency Level. Long story short, _if_ you're a school-aged student that's not taking classes at Hogwarts for some reason, you can take a Hogwarts-approved test and don't have to sit that year again if you pass it."

"James had to take one – back in June," Albus remembered. "For Defence. He was studying with a private tutor, but he's back with Malcolm this year."

"He passed it, I'm guessing?" replied Sylvia.

"I'd say," Albus answered. "Dad said he scored a hundred thirty-eight percent."

"What!?" Sylvia yelled, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. (Scorpius winced and prodded at his ear.)

"The proctor said he was about a year ahead – could've sat the fourth year Defence final and passed it easily. But they wouldn't let him take fifth-year level Defence with his fourth-year classes. Or they couldn't."

"Never knew that about James," Sylvia remarked.

"Oh, yeah, he's _obsessed_ with Defence Against the Dark Arts," Albus said. "Wants to be an Auror like Dad when he gets out of school."

"Probably explains how he got out of what happened last May," Scorpius replied.

Albus frowned. James didn't talk much – at all, really – about what had happened that evening. But Albus had noticed that he wasn't quite the same afterward. He was quieter, almost sullen, spent most of his time shut up in his room. He'd taken his broom out to fly only once or twice, and he'd only joined friends and family at Dad's birthday party because it was expected of him to show up.

What _had_ happened in Neville's office, anyway? Albus hardly knew details, and either James had been told by their father not to talk about it, or he was not keen on volunteering information. Probably a bit of both, Albus thought. James had kept quite a bit from him in recent months. One thing was for sure, though; whatever had happened in that room that day – and whatever was happening to Hogwarts as a whole – it was changing the people around him. And not for the better.

It was a helpless feeling, to watch the people you cared about most losing their smiles bit by bit. There seemed to be a dark cloud, even over this carriage of friends. They had all stopped talking, reduced now to exchanging uneasy glances with each other as the castle grew ever closer. No one knew what awaited them inside those walls, away from their homes, away from their families. That should have been exciting, but this year, it was disquieting.

He looked up at Scorpius for a moment. The blonde-haired boy, who had been seemingly deep in thought, caught Albus's eye and frowned.

"Something on your mind?" Albus asked.

"Nothing. Just…" Scorpius glanced out of the carriage, toward the woods. "I don't know if I would have let Lilith Cross come back if it were up to me."

"We don't know that she set that fire, Scorpius," Albus said, somewhat adamantly. "How can you punish someone when no one's sure she's guilty?"

"Everyone thinks she did it, right?" Scorpius asked, frowning. "That's bad enough. She might get treated like she did it."

"She doesn't deserve that," Albus said.

"You know that doesn't mean anything," Scorpius said meaningfully.

He glanced at Rose, and then Albus.

"In any case," Albus said, "it's not any of our business."

Scorpius leaned back. "Guess you're right."

But he hadn't let the matter drop; Albus could tell that by the look in his eye.

The rest of the ride to the castle was uneasy but uneventful. Albus and hundreds of others began filing into the Great Hall, where Albus immediately noticed something different.

" _Oof!_ " Albus let out a surprised grunt as someone walked into the back of him and nearly knocked him to his face.

"Watch it!" came the voice of this third-year classmate, Desmond McLaggen. Albus whirled around. Desmond was a Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, brown-haired and strapping for a thirteen-year-old. He still made Albus, who had grown a couple of inches since last year, feel like some sort of mosquito. "What'd you stop for?"

"Look where they've put the tables," Albus pointed out.

Even before the 'incident', students sat according to their Houses at the two feasts bookending the school year. It would be terribly confusing for the new first-years being Sorted otherwise. But the tables, for as long as Albus could remember them, had gone, from left to right: Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Slytherin.

Not this year.

Gryffindor were furthest to the left, with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in the middle. Slytherin was furthest right.

"What?" Sylvia noticed it. "Why'd they put us against the windows?"

But Albus, as he was herded to a spot in the Great Hall that didn't feel like home, knew exactly why they had done it. He sat down and stared blankly at the empty plates and goblet in front of him. At least the food itself wouldn't suffer. Hopefully.

He observed silently as the other three tables started to fill themselves. There was a momentary scrum near the entrance, and for a horrible moment, Albus thought that a fight had started in the Great Hall. A few seconds later, though, whatever situation there had been was resolved, albeit with a student emerging from the small throng and yelling at another. Out of the nearer, more visible side, and nearly impossible to miss because of his bulk, came Ravenclaw Beater and seventh (if Albus remembered correctly) year, Donaghan Craig. Clinging onto his arm, looking smaller and mousier than usual, was a Ravenclaw girl in Albus's year, Iris Conrad. She walked right through Albus's line of sight, and Albus could see tears on her face.

Sylvia, who was on the other side of the table and had been close enough to touch both Ravenclaws (and thankfully didn't – Craig looked positively murderous at the moment), watched them go by and asked what everyone was thinking: "What was all that?"

"Don't know. Couldn't see," Albus said. Almost on cue, they got a bit more context. Professor Gladstone, the head of Ravenclaw House, had made a beeline down Ravenclaw's row, golden-blonde hair trailing behind her with her blue cloak as she walked. And whatever she had just said to Craig, he hadn't liked:

"Are you yanking my wand?!" he exclaimed in a snarling Scottish brogue. With the arm he wasn't using to keep a tight, muscular, protective grip on Iris, he gestured emphatically toward the Hufflepuff table and shouted, "Jeremy Corbin tried to grab hold of her! He's lucky he's got that badge on or I would have knocked his bloody teeth down his throat!"

"There'll be no need for that," Gladstone said firmly. "I'll talk to Malcolm and see if he can sort Corbin out. He's new; probably didn't mean anything by it. In the meantime, I'll thank you to keep your head."

She looked down at Iris, and her demeanor completely softened.

"You all right?"

Iris didn't answer; in fact, she turned her face away from Gladstone and buried it inside Craig's robes. Gladstone stood there awkwardly for a moment, exchanged a glance with Craig, and made her way back up to the staff table.

Thankfully, the Slytherins filed in last, without much incident. Many of them, though, were obviously annoyed – probably that they had been made to wait until the other three houses had found their seats.

"That was strange," Rose commented. "Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws usually get on very well, for the most part."

"For the most part," Scorpius repeated cynically, going to take a drink from his goblet before realizing it was completely empty. Surreptitiously, he set it down on the table, hoping that no one would notice. Sylvia did, and elbowed Albus's ribs to make sure he had, too. "Craig's a loose cannon, though. Anything could have set him off."

At the time, though, Albus observed, Craig seemed to be perfectly calm and docile, letting Iris Conrad rest her head on his shoulder and conversing with another older girl that Albus recognized (although the name escaped him) as one of Ravenclaw's Chasers.

Speaking of Quidditch, Albus caught a glimpse of Freddy Weasley sitting further down the Gryffindor table along with Roxanne, Dominique (her new Prefect's badge gleaming proudly on her robes), and Tommy Jordan.

"Students of Hogwarts." The magically amplified squeak of Headmaster Filius Flitwick rang through the halls. Albus heard it, but several of the students did not. Flitwick repeated himself. "Students of Hogwarts."

An old, old wizard (although not quite as old as Flitwick) at the staff table stood, pulled out his wand and put the tip to his neck.

" _SILENCE!"_

The entire Great Hall seemed to shake with a booming roar. It had the desired effect.

Flitwick made a face that clearly said that he would have handled things another way. Nevertheless, he continued his speech. "Thank you, Professor Wenster. Students of Hogwarts – here we are, at the beginning of another year. As I'm sure you know, we cannot properly begin another term here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until our newest additions are Sorted and seated with their Houses. So without further ado, let us begin. Professor Malcolm, if you would?"

Albus had almost forgotten to register the strangeness of Professor Gladstone, who was Flitwick's right-hand woman, being in the Great Hall instead of with the new first years. He and the rest of the Great Hall certainly registered it now, though. Professor Malcolm, a dark-haired, bespectacled wizard with piercing blue eyes, approached the dais straightbacked and proud with first years behind him. There the frayed, old Sorting Hat sat in repose on a single wooden stool.

Malcolm turned to address the crowd of Hogwarts students.

"Nearly a thousand years ago, four powerful wizards and witches made the trek from different parts of Britain to this very spot," he said. "Their goal: create a safe place for wizard children to ply their craft in secret away from the prying eyes and grabbing hands of Muggles. It was a brutal era, where lord and sword ruled in Muggle Britain. Rulers great and small were deposed and killed in war constantly – and no one could know until the next was on his throne, how he felt about magic. Some rulers in that day embraced magic, even had their own court wizards and potion masters. Some were indifferent; they did not accept us as friends, but they left us alone. Some, though, were militantly against it, and killed many people – men, women, children, wizard _and_ Muggle – trying to purge it from the earth. It was about then that we as wizards figured out that our best chance for survival was in community, and the four founders figured out that the next generation's best chance for survival was in community with each other."

"The Four Founders could not necessarily agree on which particular students they wanted to teach," he continued. "But they each prized certain qualities in their pupils, and so appointed an impartial selector for any new student that was to set foot in these halls. Recent history has colored the relationships between the Houses, and misrepresented what each of the Founders truly wanted. The fact is, they were all the best of friends once upon a time, and it was only because of disagreements on how to best _protect_ the students, that the relationships ever fractured. When each of you sits in this chair and puts this Sorting Hat on, it will call out a name, and in so doing send you to one of these four tables, where you will find your closest community for these next seven years of your life. But there are good and less than good in all Houses – in all people. It is up to _you_ to decide, regardless of what the Hat tells you now or what it told you in the past – which of those you will be."

The Sorting Hat did sing a song after this, but from the parts that Albus paid attention to, it was just about what Malcolm had just said, and quite unnecessary. (Or maybe Malcolm's speech was quite unnecessary. Albus didn't know which.)

When the Hat was finally done, Malcolm unfurled a rather long scroll. Then, he freed his hands from it, and allowed it to float in front of him.

"Show-off," Albus heard Sylvia mutter next to him, causing him to smile.

"ADDISON, ARMON!"

The first boy was pale and thin, and what hair he had atop his head was a colorless stubble. It was as if someone had shaved him completely bald and the hair was just recently starting to grow back. The hat barely had to touch his stubbly pate. Its decision was almost instant:

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table, seemingly caught off guard for a second, began clapping politely. Tommy, though, jumped to his feet and was much more enthusiastic than the rest; Dominique, by contrast, stayed in her seat, but she appeared to be wiping her eyes for some reason. When young Armon reached the Gryffindor table, Tommy offered him a seat right beside himself.

"ANTHONY, MICHAEL!"

A second boy approached the dais and sat on the stool. His head was small – the hat swallowed it all the way down to his nose, eliciting laughter from a few students.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Looks like we might have a large class this year," Rose commented over the applause.

Lily would be part of it, Albus hoped, as "AURELIUS, WESLEY!" became the first Ravenclaw this year.

 **James**

"Berrow," Murphy muttered after Malcolm yelled the name over the silent Great Hall. A blond, privileged-looking boy assumed the wooden chair. The Sorting Hat fell over his head and took a while. "I say Slytherin. What's your guess?"

Cecil Brookstanton shrugged. "Ravenclaw."

"SLYTHERIN!"

"That's two wrong," Murphy said as Brookstanton sighed. "Six Knuts to me."

"No, it's _three_ Knuts. I got Aurelius right," Brookstanton protested, leaning boredly against his wrist as he observed the Sorting from a distance.

"So did I. That's a push, not a win," Murphy replied. "Six Knuts."

Brookstanton flashed Murphy a rude hand gesture, right before Malcolm shouted again:

"BODE, OPHELIA!"

A small girl, pale and black-haired, ascended the dais slowly and somewhat mournfully.

Murphy and Brookstanton glanced at each other. "Slytherin."

They were both right: "SLYTHERIN!"

And off the little girl skulked toward the Slytherin table on the opposite side of the hall.

Closely following her were two girls, surnamed Cadwallader and Corbin. Both were sorted into Hufflepuff, and the second bounded down to the house table to unabashedly and warmly embrace one of the Hufflepuff Prefects. James eyed the prefect and his younger sister (James guessed), registering the familiarity of the name.

"DRAKE, DARIAN!" was _also_ sorted into Hufflepuff, as was the _following_ student, Ezra Fawley. (Brookstanton lost a few more Knuts on this one and smacked the table – he was sure that four students in a row would not be sorted into Hufflepuff.)

"Bloody hell – rate they're going, they'll be eight to a room," Murphy commented with a smirk on his face.

James was continuing to scan the Hufflepuff table. He found Laurel Cross, and toward the end…

"Oh, my _God_ ," he whispered in shock. "Murph."

He elbowed his best friend, just as Joyeuse Garland, a small, curly blonde that looked closer to eight than eleven, jumped off the dais and skipped to the Ravenclaw table.

"What's going on?" Murphy asked.

"Look at the Hufflepuff table. All the way down at the end," James answered.

There was a slight pause, punctuated by the Sorting Hat booming the name of "GRAYSON, KELLER!"

Keller Grayson did not get in the way of Murphy's view, as he was Sorted into Ravenclaw and took a seat at the end closest to the staff table.

At the Hufflepuff table, though, sitting alone on the edge that was closest to the Great Hall's doors, was a young girl James Potter and Richard Murphy had not seen in a very, very long time.

"Merlin's balls," Murphy droned in shock. "That's Lilith effing Cross. She's back. When did that happen?"

James was already several steps ahead of him, though. "You know we've got to—"

"GROVE, DARRELL!"

"God, I wish he would _stop yelling_ ," James snarled through his teeth.

"Not to be rude or anything, but…" a boy of Indian descent, not too far away from them, finally spoke up. "Some of us are waiting for family to be Sorted."

James grimaced. "Sorry, Dathan."

"Which one is it this time?" Murphy asked their classmate. Dathan Rama, like James himself, was the oldest of several siblings. James never remembered exactly how many, and had even more trouble remembering all of their names.

"Parveen, You see—?"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The hat cut him off, and several students at their table stood to welcome Darrell Grove, a grinning, tan-skinned little boy, whose eyes still darted around his surroundings in silent awe of the place which he found himself.

As Grove took a seat not far from Gryffindor's sixth year Prefect, Eamonn Temple (who looked to be in one of his better moods this evening), Dathan repeated, "That's Parveen, right there," pointing at a girl standing on the edge of the throng of students. She was hard to miss there, with brown skin and _very_ long, dark hair that went all the way down to her waist. And with a jolt, James saw another standout head of hair to Parveen's immediate left – this one quite red. "Actually, James, isn't that _your_ sister standing next to her?"

("GUTHRIE, NATHAN!")

"Oh. That's where she went," Murphy commented casually.

James hadn't exactly forgotten that Lily was being Sorted tonight. As far as he was concerned, though, it was a formality. He didn't see any chance that she wouldn't join him and Albus in Gryffindor. She simply had too much of their mother in her. He glanced back toward Lilith Cross, who was quickly obscured when half the Hufflepuff table stood to welcome Nathan Guthrie into their House.

"HARPER, KARYN!"

An unassuming, brown-haired girl took the dais in front of everyone. The Sorting Hat took a moment, but—

"SLYTHERIN!"

The Slytherin table now jumped to their feet. One girl, at least in James's field of vision, did not, and thus stood out. She sat solemnly and silently at the table, as if this was a funeral and not a celebratory feast. In fact, she had her witch's hat on – an optional part of the Hogwarts uniform that had gone out of style a generation past. But that was always her, James thought. She always danced to a different tune than the rest and was thought of as strange, even mad for it.

It felt like they were miles apart. He couldn't possibly catch her eye from here – not unless she turned around and looked straight at him.

"HUNT, CORAL!"

A tall, rosy-faced girl assumed the chair.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

After that, Campbell Jenkins, a portly boy with whose parents had apparently seen fit to curse him with two last names, was sorted into Hufflepuff. He took a seat next to the Corbin siblings. The little sister smiled sunnily at her new housemate; her brother, the Prefect, attempted to do the same.

Shera Kim joined Coral Hunt in Gryffindor. Amadeus Klein, a beanpole of a boy with a cloud of white-blond curls for hair, was sent to Ravenclaw.

"KUBO, MASANORI!"

A short boy with long eyes scowled suspiciously at everyone from atop the dais, as the Sorting Hat was placed over his head.

"SLYTHERIN!"

The boy winced and visibly deflated for a moment or two, but then took his seat at the Slytherin table. A skinny, bespectacled boy made some sort of comment toward him. Kubo ignored the comment (and swiveled around on the bench, turning his back), but the girl in the witch's hat didn't. She said something rather sharp to the boy in glasses, who put up some sort of feeble argument before going silent.

"So, Potter," Martin Croyle queried. "Is that your sister with the red hair?"

He indicated a girl standing by herself.

"No, no, the _other_ redhead," Murphy, who had seen Lily enough times to know, corrected him.

Croyle grimaced and shrugged. "Fifty-fifty chance. What house do you think she'll be in? Gryffindor?"

"Most of both our parents' sides have been in Gryffindor," James said. "But Lily's clever enough, and the Hat's put a couple of my cousins into Ravenclaw. Really, your guess is as good as mine."

"But you'd obviously much rather she get Sorted into Gryffindor, right?" Croyle reasoned.

"It'd be easier to keep an eye on her," James admitted.

"Damn sight easier than it is for me, anyway – I haven't seen Anna since we got on the train," Murphy commented, trying to crane his neck to see over both the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables. Anna was his younger sister, a second year this year, now lost in the wall of black robes at the Hufflepuff table. "By the way, James… if we run across Alex Mack, remind me to punch his jaw."

"What?" uttered James ("HUFFLEPUFF!" the Sorting Hat bellowed as the red-haired first year girl that wasn't Lily Potter, pulled off the hat to join her new house.) "Why?"

"Anna's got it in her head that he's handsome or something," Murphy said, scowling. Croyle let out a laugh. "Plus, he almost concussed you last time you all played."

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Most of the House table rose to its feet to applaud. Fearing it would be rude not to do so, James joined them. It took a few moments, but an olive-skinned girl went through his line of sight.

Murphy asked a question to a nearby Gryffindor, then turned and told James, "Her name was Nasri. Shouldn't be too long now…"

"OBASI, ZA...Zachary?" Malcolm stumbled over the next name when everyone sat down, giving James a chance to chuckle at his expense.

"It's _Zakari_ ,"The boy in question not only replied, but had the stones to shoot Malcolm a glare as he ascended the dais.

 _I'll shake his hand if he gets Sorted into Gryffindor,_ James thought to himself.

Alas, it was not to be. The Hat decided on "RAVENCLAW!" instead. As he watched the dark-skinned boy descend the dais, he did a quick mental-run through of the alphabet, then, almost before he realized it –

"POTTER, LILY!"

The entire room went silent. James, grimacing, felt that he should have seen that coming. Malcolm's eyes settled on the girl with the flaming red hair – an expression of curiosity, if anything. The look Lily returned Malcolm, and everyone else in the Hall in turn, was blazing and defiant – not just unafraid, but seemingly, wordlessly daring someone to accuse her of showing fear.

She assumed her seat on the stool. Malcolm reached for the hat and settled it on her head.

James's heart sank a bit when the yell of " _Gryffindor!_ " was not immediate. In fact, the Hat said nothing. For a long time. For a very long time.

"What's the deal?" muttered Murphy. "There's only four Houses. Is it that difficult?"

The brim of the hat, here its 'mouth' would have been, opened… James held his breath…

A gritty, rumbling sound escaped it. It cleared its… _wait, the Sorting Hat doesn't have a throat. What?_ James thought, confused.

More silence. Muttering started to pepper through the Great Hall.

"If my watch is reading correctly," Croyle pointed out, looking at the watch on his wrist, "we're just about in Hatstall territory. Four minutes."

James could see Lily slowly starting to lose her nerve up there. She had her eyes shut tight, her hands, white-knuckled, grasping the small, wooden stool. James felt a pang of pity for her. Every impulse within him wanted to run up there, grab her, and hide her away from the appraising, staring eyes of some hundreds of Hogwarts students. He wanted to carry her off the dais and down to this table – she had grown, but he was strong enough. Or at least, he could be for that minute or two it took to yank her out of the spotlight. He remembered back to his own Sorting, three years ago, and how, even for what he was told later was about ten seconds, it felt like he had spent several hours with the eyes of Hogwarts trained solely on him. Such was the curse of being born with the name 'Potter' – but that was his lot in life. Since then, he had learned, in his own way, to deal with it.

Yes, he wanted to go up there and rescue her. And, in the moment, she looked like she would thank him for it. But he would hear about it later. Probably for a long time. She was fiery and stubborn that way. That was exactly why, James thought, she belonged at _this_ table, seated next to him in the empty space he had just shifted over to make.

And yet, she was not going to be Sorted here. Or, at least, the Hat wasn't sure she was going to be Sorted here. It was subtle, but James had noticed Sortings taking a bit longer each year. Not only did there seem to be more incoming students (this was the biggest class that James remembered), but the Hat seemed more and more deliberate about each decision.

Was it doubting its mission? Could a magically-animated object (or maybe it could be called a 'creature' – James didn't know) really doubt to that degree?

Almost without thinking about it, James's gaze drifted across the room, up to the massive, green, serpent-emblazoned banner, and down to the furthest table.

 _Her_ eyes locked with his. She had been looking straight at him a while, from what he could tell, and now that their eyes had met, she wasn't looking away.

Had he really seen what he thought he had? Maybe his eyes weren't good (and maybe that was in the blood, he thought as his mind's eye conjured an image of his bespectacled father), but from here, she looked so… _strong_. It just didn't seem possible after what had happened to her last year. _No one_ that sounded like _that_ should have emerged the same.

Maybe she wasn't the same.

Maybe she was _stronger_ , better for having survived.

Or maybe she was always that strong, and James just hadn't realized it…

The Hat finally shouted its judgment.

Within his chest, his heart stumbled over itself, and for a moment, he had to catch his breath. He did not look up at the dais. He could not bear to. He probably had several people staring at him now, but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge any of them. In this crowd, he was an island to himself.

" _Oh, shit_ …" James uttered under his breath, at barely a whisper. Then, at last, he turned his eyes to the head of the room, to the stool and the dais.

There, he watched in silent shock as his sister descended, a blank stare on her face, and seated herself at the table of House Slytherin.


	5. Chapter 5: Strange Guardians

Chapter 5: Strange Guardians

Lily Potter did not remember the Welcome Feast ending. She remembered little of the details of being herded along with this group of strangers, down several flights of stairs, through increasingly dark hallways. She did not even remember what the entrance looked like.

Her innards snarled and frothed noisily, spasming in a slight ache. It occurred to her then that, despite the world of food that had been at her literal fingertips at the feast, she hadn't eaten a single bite.

"Keep up, you lot," said an older, black-haired girl that Lily guessed was one of the Prefects.

"Like we're not already walking as fast as we can," a girl somewhere behind Lily sighed mutinously. "My feet hurt in these shoes."

"Why are you wearing them?" a boy asked.

"Not my decision," the girl said. "My mum thought I should look smart. She wouldn't have known that these bloody robes go all the way down to the ankle."

"Keep it down back there," the Prefect said. Lily hated her already.

She hated this whole situation. She looked down at her own shoes angrily, feeling the tears start to well at the corners of her eyes again. She blinked them back. She could not afford to be weak where she was going. She could _not._

The group came to a halt at the end of a hallway lit with green torches. The eerie light seemed to make the carved serpents pop off the walls and appear to move. It all gave Lily a queasy feeling in the deep pit of her stomach.

Or maybe, again, that was just the fact that she hadn't had a proper meal since that morning.

The wall itself seemed to hiss at them. Several of the students around her murmured uncomfortably.

"God, this place gives me the creeps," muttered one. "Am I really going to have to spend seven years living down here?"

"Doesn't seem so terrible to me," the girl who had complained about her feet earlier commented.

"Well, no, it wouldn't," a boy replied cynically.

"What's that mean?"

"I'm just saying, you seem like the type—"

"Can all of you shut it?" the Prefect asked tersely. "Please? Thank you. I need you lot to listen. I'm about to tell you the password for the common room, and if you don't hear it, you'll be bang out of luck when you need to get back in here yourselves. Password is ' _squid eggs._ ' Got it? _'Squid eggs.'"_

There was a clanking, hissing sound toward the front where the Prefect stood near the wall. Lily was too far away to see details, but she did see the end result – the wall shifted aside to reveal a doorway. Wordlessly, the Prefect disappeared into the new space. Lily followed her along with the others.

Soft, percussive sounds echoed through the new, round, green chamber like kernels of popping corn, and it took a moment for Lily to realize that she and the other students were being greeted by applause. Polite, scattered, toothless applause, but applause nonetheless. Most of the students that were already in the chamber were on their feet, and the few that were not, had stood to join the others.

Five seconds later, many of them had gone back to private conversations on couches or reading books alone.

"Welcome to House Slytherin," the Prefect said tersely to Lily and the others that had come down with her. "If you need anything the other students can't give you or you can't get yourself, look for someone with one of these badges. My name's Amarilys Pucey."

And, just like that, she whisked away as if glad to be shot of the newcomers.

Lily stood in the middle of this common room for a moment, while some of the others separated. For all the stories James and Albus had told her about Gryffindor's common room, Slytherin's appeared to be the opposite in every way possibly imaginable.

Red against green, a high tower versus a deep, dark dungeon. A loud, raucous, three-hour party as opposed to three seconds of perfunctory applause. And down here, hardly anyone seemed to be going out of their way to meet their new housemates.

Not that she had earned it or anything, she thought, but she _was_ a Potter. As much as it irritated her at times, she would have thought that _some_ curious person –

 _But then_ , a nasty little voice in her head said, _they may not much like the Potters down here…_

She shook her head. She couldn't think like that, she told herself. All that nasty business that had happened with Voldemort – that was twenty years ago, well before anyone in this room had even been born.

Still, though, it would have been easier… _so_ much easier… if the Hat had just put her in Gryffindor. Even then, if she had no one else, she would have had her brothers. And Hugo. Hugo was up there, too. She gulped against the lump in her throat. He was probably worried about her, probably upset that he couldn't see her. But at least the Hat hadn't done something daft like put him into Hufflepuff. She didn't know anyone in her family that had been Sorted into Hufflepuff.

Unless you counted Teddy, and he'd left Hogwarts years ago…

She started to walk across the common room, furtively trying to catch the eye of some older student somewhere. It had just now occurred to her, embarrassingly enough, that she really, _really_ had to pee – and, of course, she had no earthly idea where the appropriate place was to do so for a Slytherin girl.

Lily Potter, Slytherin girl.

It didn't seem to fit. It didn't feel right. Maybe it wasn't _wrong_ , but…

She didn't understand. Was she not brave enough to get into Gryffindor? Not clever enough for Ravenclaw? Not hardworking and loyal enough for Hufflepuff?

"Why the long face? Don't like Slytherin?"

Lily looked up.

Two girls, both well over a head taller, were looking down at her. One was brown-skinned with a braid. The other was large and rather ugly. Of course, given that she had clenched fists the size of dinner plates, Lily didn't have any inclination to let her know about either of these facts.

"I didn't hear you, 'Princess Potter'," the brown-skinned girl said derisively.

Suddenly, the large girl turned to the other and said, "You can't use that. _I_ made that up."

The brown-skinned girl looked at the larger one with an expression that suggested that she'd just smelled something foul. Or maybe that was just her face. Lily hadn't figured it out yet.

"What's the matter? You Potters too good for Slytherin? Is that it?"

Lily wasn't in the mood for this conversation. "I don't want any trouble," she said, trying to walk around them. (She chose the short corner, walking toward the braided girl rather than the stout one.) "Can we just—"

But she felt a powerful tug at the back of her robes impeding her progress. She stumbled backward.

"Who said you could go anywhere?" the braided girl queried bossily.

With a sigh, Lily tried to walk away a second time, her anger building. She felt the grip on her shoulder this time, and knocked the foreign arm away as hard as she could…

White-hot pain exploded on the left side of Lily's face as something collided with it with little warning. She whirled, stumbled, as stars and flashes popped before her field of vision. The sting gave way to numbness. She heard herself let out a cry; her tongue swept across her lip to check if it was still there. She tasted more than a hint of copper. She felt her eyes watering…

"Want to fight, do you?"

" _Immobulus!"_

Lily, despite herself, flinched, but the impact she was waiting on never came. Through her watering eyes, she turned and saw the brown-skinned girl trying to charge her, but held in place somehow. Her attacker's eyes darted around in their sockets.

"Bullying first years already? Not if I've got anything to say about it, you're not."

There was little enough space between Lily and her would-be assailant, but the newcomer shoehorned her way in there somehow, forcing Lily back a step. Almost humorously, Lily's first thought was that she was at least fortunate not to be the only redhead in Slytherin. That said, this girl's hair was much different – long, wavy, and a darker shade of red than Lily's own. She was taller than Lily, but not by very much.

"What are you doing here?" the girl that had slapped Lily finally seemed to get some of her range of motion back. Surprisingly enough, she used it to recoil. In fact, unless Lily's eyes were deceiving her, she and the heavyset girl actually looked afraid of this much smaller redhead. No one seemed to be willing to make a move.

"This is my house. What sort of question is that?" the other girl asked.

The brown-skinned girl scoffed. "I know that. I'm not stupid. What are you doing _here_?"

"Do I have to slow it down for you?" the redhead asked. "I'm stopping you from tormenting our first years. Now – are you going to back off? Or are you going to test me and lose – _again?_ "

Amara's eyes widened like she had seen a ghost. Then her gaze narrowed. Her lip curled and trembled for a moment. A long moment.

But, in the end, she walked away, and the other girl followed.

The redheaded stranger let out a sigh, shaking her head, and finally turned around. Lily was taken aback. She'd been expecting a much tougher face. This girl was blue-eyed and (despite a tightness around her forehead that suggested a very high level of stress) pretty.

"My roommates – Amara Zabini, Marsha Flint," she explained apologetically. "They're not as hard as they look. Just common bullies, really. They gave me a hard time when we all first got here. I sorted them out right around last Christmas. They haven't given me any trouble since. Don't be daft and ask them about it, though. I don't think it's a fond memory for either of them."

Lily didn't speak for a moment. She didn't mean to be rude – but her face and pride still stung a bit, not to mention she hadn't been in a great mood to begin with. To her great surprise (well, part surprise, part shock and dismay), the girl reached into her robes and pulled out a napkin. She gently pressed it to Lily's lip.

"I figured you'd be along soon," she said cryptically. She withdrew the cloth, and Lily caught sight of a spot of deep red on its white surface. "Never imagined you'd end up here, though. How many from your family have ever been Sorted into Slytherin?"

"No one. I'm the first," Lily said.

She wanted to say more, but voice failed her and her eyes started welling up. Ashamed, she tried to look down.

"You're not alone," the other girl said.

"How do you know me?" Lily asked. "What makes me so different?"

The girl frowned for a moment. "You have no idea where the dormitories are, do you?"

Lily shook her head.

So the girl led, and Lily followed. The stairwell began inside what appeared to be inside the carved head and open mouth of a serpent – which, even Lily had to admit, was kind of cool.

Almost as expected, the stairwell spiraled downward like the body of a coiled snake. Green torches lit the walls, giving off their eerie glow.

"You never answered my question," Lily said after a while. "We've never met before, have we?"

"I know whose you are," the other girl said cryptically. At first, Lily thought she'd misheard her. "That's good enough for me."

"'Whose'…?" Lily repeated, confused.

The girl turned around. The green flames caused light to dance across her face for a moment. "You're Lily Potter," she said simply.

It made Lily angry, almost immediately. She'd always had a strange relationship with the Potter name. She loved her family dearly – her parents, her brothers… but being a Potter almost felt like she never got the chance to _earn_ anything. Not anyone's respect, not anyone's friendship… not even anyone's hate. Everything she had, both good and otherwise, seemed to be because her parents were Harry and Ginny Potter.

And she never felt right about that.

"You don't have to baby me because of who my father is," she finally said.

"It's got nothing to do with your father," the girl replied. After Lily gave her a disbelieving look, she added, "Okay, maybe so. Maybe a bit. But…"

"You don't want to treat me any differently because of who my father is?" Lily asked, half incredulous, half confused. Her next thought – and it was probably an awful thing to think – was to ask the girl if she were Muggle-born. Not that it meant anything significant – but a Muggle-born teenage girl probably wouldn't have known much, if anything, about the wars. All the wizard children heard from their parents and grandparents, who had lived during those times. And by the time Lily and her generation came along, it was all over.

"Not because of your _father_ ," the girl replied.

Lily thought this strange – but then, Lily had several well-known relatives. The Weasleys were famous in their own right: her mother, aside from being Harry Potter's wife, was a former Quidditch player and _Daily Prophet_ correspondent. Her grandmother had killed Voldemort's most skilled and dangerous duelist in single combat. Two of her uncles were well-known businessmen. Another one was one of Britain's most highly regarded names in the field of dragon research (and had been one of the better Seekers Hogwarts had ever seen in his day).

"I know your brother." The girl saved Lily the trouble of trying to figure out which of her family members was the reason she had come to Lily's aid. "James."

That hadn't quite been the answer Lily was expecting. "Is James important?"

It sounded like a harsh question, perhaps even a cruel question, for a sister to ask about her own brother – at the same time, Lily would have had no idea what, if anything, could have made James well-known aside from being Harry's son. He was a rather skilled Quidditch player, Lily remembered – but that alone couldn't have been the reason. After all, he played Chaser for Gryffindor, and this was House Slytherin…

The girl looked down at her shoes – no, her _feet._ She wasn't wearing any shoes, and Lily had just noticed that…

She smiled and closed her eyes for a moment, almost as if she had slipped into a daydream and found it pleasant. Then, suddenly (and, if Lily was being honest, unnervingly) her blue eyes snapped open and she looked straight at Lily. She had obviously thought something, but obviously thought better of saying it.

"Anyway, if there's anything you need," the girl said instead, "don't be afraid to knock on my door."

"I don't know which door is yours," Lily replied. "I don't even know your name."

The girl didn't answer immediately, but continued down the stairs, which Lily took as a wordless invitation to follow. After a few awkwardly silent moments, they came to a stop between two doors. The girl looked to the one on Lily's right. On that door, was a small portrait of a witch. She seemed familiar; Lily thought she might have seen her on a Chocolate Frog card or something. Above it was, in almost script-like print, " _THIRD YEARS."_ The 'S' had a long, ostentatious tail that underlined the whole phrase. Lily spent a split-second wondering about the point of this before it hit her that the final letter was supposed to be stylized to recall a serpent.

"My name's Brynne," the girl finally told her. "Brynne Walter."

Lily felt her eyes widen almost despite herself.

Brynne must have noticed the expression, because she asked, "Has he said anything about me?"

Lily only recognized the name due to an accident of sorts that had happened over the summer. James spent several weeks after the last term ended in a funk, often not even emerging from his room. He was silent and almost sullen at dinner, always looking like he had something or other on his mind. Even the few smiles Lily had managed to coax out of him had been forced, fragile, and had disappeared within a second or two. Eventually, their father either had pity on him or got tired of his wet-blanket attitude, and sent him off to London for a week to live with Uncle George, Aunt Angelina, Freddy, and Roxanne. Unusually neat and diligent with his chores over the summer, he had forgotten to empty his trash before leaving. It was there, as she followed Albus and took the opportunity to snoop, that she found, in the small trash can, torn pieces of parchment – one of them with the introduction, " _Dear Brynne"._ It appeared to have been a letter he had intended to send, before deciding to scrap it. Clearly there were things he had wanted to say to her, things he had perhaps kept to himself for the whole summer…

"Not really." It wasn't Lily's job to pick up after James; after all, she had quite enough troubles to be going on with now.

Brynne's lips pursed for a moment. Clearly, she had found Lily's reply disappointing. Still, though, she reached out and put a hand on Lily's shoulder.

"Do try to make friends with the other Slytherins in your year," she suggested. "We're really not all bad."

Lily let out a sigh; for as long as she had carried the wish to join her brothers in Gryffindor, she was a Slytherin now. Might as well make the best of it.

"I will… but what if they're… you know…"

She then, a bit furtively, used a descriptor she was sure neither of her parents would have liked to hear her saying. The half-smile of a naughty thrill crossed her face. Brynne, far from telling her off, actually looked to be slightly amused.

"You've always got me, then," she said. "But between us, I don't think any of the girls in your room look half as tough as you."

She opened the door to her room, gave Lily one last parting grin, and then shut it behind her.

It didn't take long for Lily to make her way down to the first year witches' room; there was only one direction to go, after all. She raised her hand for a moment to knock; and then she realized that she _lived here_. Without further hesitation, she opened the door.

Whatever conversation had been going on inside the room – if there _had_ been any conversation – ended the instant she appeared.

Then, rather hilariously, a loud, sonorous, feline _"Mrrrrowwwwww_ ," filled the room.

A ginger cat darted out from underneath the only empty four-poster bed, and attempt to climb up Lily's robes before Lily had mercy on her and lifted her off the ground and into her arms, where she let out contented purrs.

"I think she's scared of all of us," one girl droned in a depressingly monotone voice.

"No, I think she's just scared of _you_ ," another girl commented.

Both girls had hair of darkest black, a bit like her father's and Al's. But one was quite, _quite_ pale-skinned… borderline ghostly, in fact… and the other had smooth, brown skin and hair that went nearly down to her waist.

Lily recognized the first girl from the Sorting as Ophelia Bode.

The other, whose name she'd forgotten, was presently dismounting from her bed. Lily felt a tinge of envy. Her hair was almost mesmerizing. Lily had never seen locks this long, dark, and pretty. It was so long, it moved almost independently of its owner, like the train of a cloak flowing in the wind.

Lily wondered how many Galleons she (or her parents) spent yearly in hair products to keep it that well-maintained. It looked like a job – that was for sure.

"I'm Parveen," the girl said. "So that's _your_ cat. What's her name?"

"Fiamma," Lily replied.

"Ginger, like your hair," Parveen commented, smiling brightly. Now addressing the cat, she said, "Here, girl, I won't hurt you…"

Fiamma seemed to trust Parveen – or at least, she trusted the safety of Lily's arms enough to lay stiffly and silently as Parveen petted her. The truth was in her eyes, though – and, like Lily, she wasn't quite sure about all these strange people yet.

"Lily Potter, right?" Parveen asked. Lily nodded. She smiled warmly. "Both my parents were in Gryffindor when they went here, too. But I've got one older brother in Gryffindor and then an older sister in Ravenclaw. So my family's all over. I'll bet the Hat puts my little brother in Hufflepuff just to make everything even."

Parveen, Lily thought, must have had a big family. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"

"There's four of us," Parveen replied. "Dathan, Madhari, then me, then Dinesh. He's nine."

"It'd be kind of cool to grow up with brothers and sisters so close to your age," another girl remarked. She had been silent thus far, but Lily looked in the direction of the voice to see a girl with brown hair sit up from her bed.

"Are you an only child?" Parveen asked.

"No. I've got one little brother – Mason," the girl said sadly. "He's only three. I already miss him…"

"Three? Wow," Parveen remarked. Lily could barely remember the last time there had been a baby that young in her family, and she had quite a few cousins. The youngest one, if she remembered correctly, was Uncle Percy's daughter, Lucy. Lily remembered getting to hold her as a four-year-old – her first time ever holding a baby. That would mean that Lucy was about seven now. She hadn't seen her in coming up on a year.

"Yeah," the girl that had been speaking sighed. "I'll be long gone by the time he comes to Hogwarts."

"So, Ophelia," Parveen asked. "What about you?"

Ophelia's reaction was unexpected. She looked away from the rest of the girls. "I don't want to talk about it."

In fact, she promptly pulled the covers over herself. Then, seemingly knowing that the other girls were watching her, sat bolt upright, displayed her wand for a moment, and magicked the predictably green curtains around her four-poster. Rather forcefully.

Parveen's smile faded a bit.

"What was that about?" Lily whispered.

"No idea," Parveen answered.

At that moment, there was a thump at the door. Both Lily and Parveen jumped. Lily turned around and found herself nearly staring in the face of Amarilys Pucey, the Slytherin Prefect.

"Lights out," she said tersely. "You lot have a big day tomorrow."

And she exited just as quickly.

"Am I the only one starting to not like her?" the last girl, whose name Lily didn't remember right off, asked.

Lily racked her brain, trying to remember who it had been that had been Sorted into Slytherin before her…

"Karyn, right?" Lily asked.

"Right in one," Karyn replied, grinning. "Parveen and Ophelia didn't remember."

"I'm bad with names," Parveen protested. "At least I was in the neighborhood."

"Must have been some big neighborhood," Karyn answered, the smirk of acid humor on her lips. "'Karyn' and 'Kimberly' don't sound a thing like each other."

Lily grinned.

She was going to fit in here… okay, she supposed.

 **Albus**

"Slytherin…" a boy near Albus repeated to himself for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I can't believe she got Sorted into bloody Slytherin. What's the Hat playing at, doing something like that? We've _never_ had anyone sorted into Slytherin. _Ever._ "

Albus watched his younger cousin nearly pulling his reddish-brown curls out of his head.

Albus spoke:

"Well, we'd never had any Ravenclaws, either, until Victoire got Sorted there," he remarked. "There's gotta be a first time for everything."

Almost predictably, this wasn't much comfort to Hugo Weasley. Victoire was almost nine years older than Hugo, and the two weren't very close.

"I don't see how you're so calm," Hugo answered. "This is _your sister_ we're talking about, Al."

"I know," Albus replied. "That's why I know she'll be fine."

"You're completely sure about that?"

Both boys turned toward Scorpius Malfoy, who was sitting at the end of the couch. Albus visibly cringed.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"I mean…" Scorpius seemed uncomfortable taking this conversation where it was going. "It's just that… any other year, I'd agree with you. This year, though… after everything that happened…"

"It's all wrong," Hugo said shakily, sounding close to tears. "Lily's supposed to be _here_ , in Gryffindor, with _us_. Slytherin's for… for…"

"For what?"

An older voice cut into the conversation. Albus, recognizing it, looked up.

Albus Potter sometimes had to remind himself that his brother, James, was not even a year and a half older than he was. The fourteen-year-old had grown suddenly to where the difference between he and Albus was nearly a head. He had passed up their mother a while ago, and was now almost tall enough to look their father in the eye. While Albus had retained a tamer version of their father's jet black hair, and Lily their mother's straight red, James's hair, now that it was longer, looked like neither. It was a shade of dark brown, neither mother's nor father's, and landed somewhere between Dad's messy wildness and the curls you could see in Gran's hair if you looked hard enough. His face was serious, contemplative… Albus found it sad to look at. He somewhat missed the lively eleven-year-old that liked to needle and torment him, but never quite enough that it hurt, or that Albus ever thought he was hated.

"Who's Slytherin for?" James repeated. Hugo, while not around them as much nowadays, obviously noticed the change in James's demeanor, too. Albus could see an uncomfortable grimace forming on his younger cousin's face.

"Well, it's…" Hugo stammered. " _You_ know…"

"I know there are some gits in Slytherin, sure," James replied. "But there's types like that in all the Houses."

"Didn't one of the Slytherins try to _kill_ a Professor last year?" asked Hugo. "I heard Mum and Dad talking about it."

"What you've got to understand about that is…" James looked ready to argue – but he closed his eyes and appeared to visibly bite his lip, going silent for a moment. "It's more complicated… it's _all_ more complicated than that. Trust me. I don't like that Lily's by herself in Slytherin. But if anyone can handle it, it's her."

"Haven't you heard any of the Prefects?" Hugo asked. "They said the Professors are doing everything they can to keep the Gryffindors and Slytherins away from each other. We don't even have any double periods with them this year. I don't know, I'm just worried… no one in our family's ever been a member of Slytherin House before."

"Slytherins won't hurt one of their own," Scorpius suddenly said, very strongly. "Even if they don't care much for any of the other Houses, they're loyal to each other, at least. Sometimes too loyal."

"How do you know all this?" asked Hugo.

"My whole family were Slytherin," Scorpius explained. "I was the first one to get sorted into Gryffindor."

Hugo tilted his head. "Who are you, exactly? I never got your name."

"Scorpius," Scorpius answered. "Scorpius Malfoy."

Hugo's eyes widened. His jaw unhinged. He stood from the couch very slowly, eyeing Scorpius with a suspicious expression.

Then he ran away.

Albus's own jaw came undone for a moment as he fished for something to say. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) his brother had just the phrase to break the tension.

"Well, that was awkward."

"Don't worry," Scorpius sighed calmly. "I'm used to it now."

And he trudged off toward the dormitories.

Albus sighed. He knew he would have to convince Scorpius for what felt like the hundredth time that someone in the family didn't absolutely hate him. Still, he had an opportunity to talk to his brother alone, which was more than could be said of any point in the past several weeks. Rose, ever the introvert, had all but avoided the welcoming party for the new Gryffindors once Hugo was safely in the tower. Sylvia, shockingly enough, had retired early, complaining of a headache and a fever. Albus hoped she was alright.

"You know something, don't you?" asked Albus finally. "Something the rest of us don't. I mean… you were there that night. The night Neville…"

James tried to act like he hadn't heard the question. He started to wander away, but encountered a rather large human roadblock. This roadblock was named Eamonn Temple, and he was a sixth year Prefect known for being both burly and surly.

"Prefects need this space," Temple said. He was pointing with his chin at the couch where Albus was sitting. He made to step toward it, but James stood in his way.

"Al was here first," he said.

"It's just the first day, Potter – it's too early for you to start being difficult," Temple said impatiently.

Albus decided to solve the problem himself.

"It's fine," he said, standing.

James seemed to disapprove of this. "Al, don't –"

"I was headed up to bed anyway," Albus replied – not a complete untruth. But two more minutes on a couch by himself wasn't worth the wrath of a Prefect – or James getting into a duel with a Prefect before classes even started. James had the on-edge bearing of someone waiting for a good excuse to shoot off a couple of hexes. He hid it well, but Lily's being Sorted into Slytherin clearly upset him – even if he believed everything he was saying about her. She _was_ strong. She _could_ handle it. But neither of the brothers liked that she had to.

As Albus backed away from the couch, he watched as James and Temple exchanged _long_ , distrustful stares. Then James finally walked away.

Albus's dormitory was already full when he arrived, all the other boys on or around their red-curtained four-poster beds.

Rowan Lester had hair down to his shoulders in golden-brown waves now, and appeared to have grown several inches over the summer. He was scribbling furiously on a _long_ roll of parchment with his quill. Albus, in a brief moment of panic, thought he might have been finishing up an assignment Albus had forgotten. But then it occurred to him – classes didn't even start until tomorrow. Heck, he didn't even have his _schedule_ yet. (Who was teaching Herbology with Neville gone? Albus didn't remember anyone ever saying…)

Desmond McLaggen was shifting his trunk under his bed. He stood up to his full height; he had always been bigger than the other boys in his year, and the passing time had only served to accentuate that difference.

"Potter," he said rather cordially, although he looked too busy for more conversation.

"So – who's the novel for?" another boy asked. Albus assumed Stephan Vaisey, who was on the other side of the room, was talking to Rowan. Albus, save for the first few weeks of first year when no one knew each other very well, had always given Vaisey a wide berth – wider, even, than the large, overly boisterous, and slightly intimidating Desmond McLaggen. He was not sorry that their beds were arranged on opposite sides of the room. There was something… not quite right about Vaisey, particularly since a nasty incident last year when he was beaten bloody by a pair of older Slytherin boys. "Lester? You ignoring me?"

"I'm concentrating," Rowan replied in a brutally honest fashion. Clearly, whatever he was writing was several degrees more important than Stephan Vaisey at the moment.

"I hear you've got a new girlfriend," Vaisey remarked. "That for her?"

"She's not my girlfriend," Rowan answered very matter-of-factly.

"She'd better not be," Vaisey said, sounding threatening. "Her kind aren't good for you."

"Her _kind_?" Rowan stopped with the letter and looked up and across the room at Vaisey. There was a moment of tense silence. Then Rowan _scoffed –_ almost disdainfully, in fact. "God, listen to yourself."

"Hold on a second," McLaggen uttered. "Did I miss something? Who are we talking about here?"

"I forget her name… it's the snake from our year. Midget redhead. Weird," Vaisey explained distastefully and with as few words as possible, as if even speaking of the girl was tantamount to uttering a string of horrible swears.

"Brynne Walter," Scorpius said suddenly. Albus winced; he didn't know if it was a good idea to keep helping Vaisey out.

"Yeah, that one," Vaisey said, the scowl never leaving his face. "You and her and her mother all showed up at King's Cross together."

"That wasn't her mother," Rowan said, now putting his quill down.

"Some relative of hers," replied Vaisey. "So if Walter's not your girlfriend, what is she? You two long-lost cousins or something?"

"Could be," Rowan replied very sincerely, shrugging. "I don't know all my family tree on my dad's side. Only my Uncle Flynn and some distant relative that was Minister of Magic for a year. It's complicated."

"She your godmum or something?" McLaggen queried.

"No," Rowan sighed, kneading his forehead in annoyance. He obviously didn't feel like explaining, but realized he would have to if he was to be left alone. "Short version is, my uncle and I ended up in Brynne's hometown after some… stuff happened. He got hurt, so Brynne's aunt thought it'd be better if she brought Brynne and me to King's Cross together instead of him having to make the trip."

"So, who's worth… what's that – five feet of parchment?" McLaggen took an aside glance at an unfurled roll that looked nearly as long as any of them were tall. "Who's the letter for?"

"It's for the Headmaster," answered Rowan, as if third years wrote long letters to Headmaster Flitwick every day.

McLaggen looked ready to ask, but then apparently decided he didn't want to know. He flopped back on his pillow.

Albus finally trudged over to his own bed. "Hey, Scorpius…"

"Forget it," Scorpius replied, not looking up from his copy of _Quidditch through the Ages_. "It's like I said, I'm used to it by now."

"I'll talk to him tomorrow," Albus promised.

"It's _fine_ ," Scorpius said, although his tone betrayed him. "It's not like I'll see him around a whole lot. He's only a first year."

"…He's also Rose's little brother," Albus pointed out.

"…And?" Scorpius queried. "Why's that matter?"

Albus's reasoning was something stupid, like keeping harmony amongst his friends. Rose wouldn't be happy if Scorpius and Hugo were at loggerheads. Then again, Rose wasn't happy with Scorpius half the time, anyway.

Albus changed out of his school robes and climbed into bed. At some point, the thoughts that circled around his head started melding together.

The loud twittering of birds somewhere outside prompted him to open his eyes.

Golden-orange light poured into the room, illuminating the tiny specks of dust floating in the air. Seeing the dust seemed to make Albus's body react; his nose twitched without permission and he let out an almighty sneeze that caused his head to throb for a few moments.

Looking around the room as his eyes focused, he quickly realized that he had been left behind. He went to dress himself in his school uniform. His pants were painfully tight around his waist. He felt awkward in the clothes, which were barely a month old. Both he and James had emerged from the summer too big for any of their old robes or uniforms, and had needed the whole lot replaced.

Maybe after a few days of wearing them, Albus thought, they'd be broken in and not feel quite so stiff.

He emerged from his dorm, across the path of a witch, and the two knocked shoulders.

"Ouch—"

Albus, nearest the stairs, teetered dangerously for a moment before a pair of hands righted him.

"Sorry, sorry…" the girl said, not sounding fully awake yet, before letting out a yawn. She closed her eyes and rubbed one. Then she opened both. "Oh. Morning, Albus."

"Morning," Albus replied at a mutter. A mad thought went through his head for a brief moment, but he quickly suppressed it.

She might have seen the cogs working in his brain, though, because she made a face.

"You alright?" she asked. "Hey."

Sylvia snapped her finger a couple of inches from the bridge of Albus's nose.

"Wake up," she said, grinning.

"Okay?" Albus inflected strangely. He'd meant to ask 'are you okay?' but some of the words got lost somewhere between brain and mouth. "I got worried when you went to bed early."

"Worried?" she repeated. "That's sweet of you."

Albus felt the fire of a thousand suns light up on his face. "Uh… I… yeah, I mean… it's not like you, to just skip out on a party like that."

"…I don't know," Sylvia sighed. "It's been a few times this summer. Maybe I'll go see Madam Pomfrey if it happens again. We should probably go. We're already late."

She darted down the stairs.

"Yeah…" Albus replied to absolutely no one.

He caught up with Sylvia at the bottom of the stairs leading to the common room, and just into its entrance, he passed by two girls.

" _I_ heard he's not coming back as long as Flitwick's Headmaster," one of them said to the other.

Albus, somewhat feeling like he might regret this in a moment, queried, "Who's that?"

They both turned and registered a moment of shock. "Hi, Albus," they both chorused, smiling much too identically for two girls who weren't twins or even sisters. Albus found it a bit unnerving.

"We were just talking about Professor Longbottom," one of them replied.

Albus had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Nina Edgerton and Elizabeth O'Connell were the other two Gryffindor girls in Albus's year, who roomed with Sylvia and Rose. Both had the reputation for being gossipy hens… which might have been mildly useful to figure out what was going on around the school, if half of the information they parroted wasn't completely wrong. He had half a mind to go over there and correct them, but Sylvia was waiting on him and they were already late, so he decided against it.

"How do you deal with those two?" Albus asked once they were on the stairs from the tower down to the Great Hall.

"Tune them out, mostly," Sylvia answered. "…So, I hear that Wenster codger's going to be our Acting Head of House until Longbottom gets back?"

"I guess so," Albus replied.

Sylvia frowned mutinously. "Brilliant. I never liked him."

 _He's not Neville, that's for sure…_ Albus thought silently as Sylvia suddenly seemed to realize something.

"Hold on… who's teaching Herbology, then?" asked Sylvia.

"Not sure," Since Neville was a friend of the Potters and Albus's godfather, Albus knew rather more than most about Neville's new baby and leave of absence. What he wasn't sure about, however, was who was going to be taking over for him while he was gone.

"About to find out, I guess," Sylvia reasoned. Quickening her steps, she said, "Let's hurry before we're any later."

Albus wasn't exactly a couch potato, but he always felt out of shape trying to keep stride with Sylvia. She was a fast runner, as adroit on the ground as she was in the air. They were nearly to the Great Hall when, approaching a corner, Sylvia pulled up short.

"Sylvia?" a tall, Black man emerged, carrying a rather large bundle of something wooden slung across his back. "What are you doing here? Haven't you heard the rules? You're not supposed to be out in the halls on your own."

"I'm _not_ ," Sylvia protested. "I was with…"

Thankfully, Albus was able to catch up in the next couple of seconds, so as to not make Sylvia look like a liar in front of her father. He didn't look either in the eye, though.

"Oh. Albus. How are you?"

"Alright," Albus said laconically, still looking at his shoes.

"What's in the bag?" asked Sylvia.

"New brooms for the first years," her father replied, smiling. "Governors finally gave us the go-ahead. Cleansweep Twelves. Pretty good condition."

"Cleansweep?" Sylvia replied, doing a bad job of hiding her disappointment. "What happened to the Firebolts?"

"Governors thought Firebolts were a bit much for first years to handle," he replied with a conceding grimace. "And the original one isn't exactly new. I was in third year myself when that broom came out. Anyway, I've got to go set up. First lesson's actually at ten. They've moved them up this year. See you around?"

Albus, his head still down a bit, didn't see Sylvia's father leaving.

"What's with you?" asked Sylvia a moment later. Albus gave a noncommittal murmur. The only thing that would have been more frightening to Albus than explaining to Sylvia's father why he couldn't look him in the eye, would be explaining it to Sylvia herself.

Albus had heard it said that dreams gave some insight into one's waking thoughts – or, rather, they were centered often around the waking thoughts that one worked the hardest to suppress. That thought terrified Albus. He had therefore kept them a secret.

"You're alright, right?" Sylvia asked. "You're not afraid of going in here?"

Albus found himself irritated at such an idea. Did Sylvia really think he was that much of a coward?

Did he deserve for her to think that?

"I ate in the Great Hall just fine all last year," he said.

"Okay, just checking. But you're more out of it than usual today," Sylvia noted. "We should—"

"What's this?"

An old wizard had just emerged from the Great Hall doors, wearing robes of black and scarlet. He was tall and thin, with darting, alert green eyes that belied his advanced age. Whereas some aging men went out of their way to resist the ever-encroaching specter of baldness, Professor Lucan Wenster appeared to have embraced it. His somewhat narrow head was shorn bald and so well oiled that the light reflecting off his pate made Albus squint. A strong chin was evident even under a scruff of white that never seemed to grow into a full beard, yet never seemed to go away, either. His expression was stern, serious, and cold – that is to say, completely normal for Professor Wenster.

"You're supposed to be inside the Great Hall eating with your schoolmates, not dawdling around outside," he said sharply.

"We overslept," Albus tried to explain.

"You both? Overslept?" Wenster asked, his alert, green eyes darting from student to student as if he'd already made up his mind that Albus was lying. "Hmm. Funny coincidence, that. Five points each will get you out of bed earlier, I think." Sylvia's mouth opened at this announcement. "If you're caught, it'll be fifty each and _several_ detentions. You've got my word on that."

He trudged away, muttering something about "put 'em in separate towers altogether" that Albus couldn't fully decipher.

"He's so…" Sylvia started to complain, but then she stopped. "Wait a second. 'Caught'? What did he think—"

"…What?" Albus finally asked Sylvia. Clearly, she understood something he didn't. When she looked back at him, though, it was with a bit lip and red cheeks.

Distractedly, she said, "Yeah, we should probably go in. Don't want him coming back and actually trying to get those hundred points off us…"

Albus was bewildered. Whole Houses only put together three or four hundred points when everything was said and done. A hundred was a bloody lot to be taking off two students this early in the term, let alone two students in one's own house. Exactly what had Wenster thought they were doing?

Albus and Sylvia finally crossed the threshold into the Great Hall, and what Albus saw there made his heart drop just a bit. There was virtually no change from the welcome feast the night before. The tables were still arranged by House, with the banners of each House overhanging them.

Sylvia frowned. "At least they haven't put walls between them, I guess…" she commented as she skulked toward the left side of the room. Albus followed silently.

It was not long before they caught sight of Rose and Scorpius. They were sitting together, but not speaking. In fact, there was a noticeable frostiness in the area when Albus approached. And Rose (as per usual when she didn't feel like talking to people) had her nose in a piece of parchment.

"Where were you?" Rose immediately exclaimed once she caught sight of Albus.

"I overslept," Albus sighed. Rose's glance immediately switched to Sylvia.

"What are you looking at me for?" she asked, rather defensively.

"Nothing," Rose replied – but there was a suspicious edge in her voice and an askance look in her eye. "They brought by the schedules while you were dozing off."

"You've got all four electives _and_ chorus, I'm guessing?" asked Sylvia.

"What are you, mad?" Rose replied. "Divination and Arithmancy are the same block, anyways. I'd need to… turn back time or something."

"Not to mention you're a rubbish singer," Sylvia chuckled. Albus smirked, and even Rose angled her head in concession. Sylvia took the schedule from in front of Rose. Immediately, a loud groan escaped her. "Oh, _god_ , why?!"

"What is it?" Albus asked, unfurling his own schedule, which Scorpius, looking a bit distracted, had handed him. There, he saw it – third years had Transfiguration first with Wenster. Right after that was History of Magic.

"Wenster and Binns first thing?!" Sylvia cried, pointing at the offending lines. "It's like the Monday morning schedule from hell."

"It's already Monday morning," Scorpius finally said. "Not much you could do to make that worse."

"They sure tried," Sylvia sighed.

"We've got Potions after lunch," Albus remarked.

"Good for _you_ , maybe," Sylvia answered. Out of the four of them, she was the one that struggled with Potions the most. It wasn't that she wasn't bright. Sylvia had done quite well in Defence last year, happened to be good at Charms, and was more than fair in Herbology. She just couldn't be arsed with the sort of detail it took to make one a masterful Potion brewer.

"Double Charms and Defense this year," Scorpius pointed out. "Both with Hufflepuff."

He looked up from his schedule and then vaguely toward the Hufflepuff table, on the other side of the room.

"Who are you looking for?" asked Sylvia.

"Just trying to remember who the Hufflepuffs are in our year," Scorpius said. "We're not really around them that much, are we…?"

"The Macks are in our year," Sylvia answered. With a dark expression, she added, "Thought you of all people would remember that."

Twin brothers Andrew and Alexander both played Beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and gave Sylvia, Scorpius, and Albus's brother James no end of headaches – some of them literal. They also had a sister, Adriana. The Macks were triplet siblings – a fascinating rarity in the wizard world.

"Lilith Cross," Sylvia awfully pointed out. Rose made a face. Sylvia noticed. "What's that, Rose?"

Rose stammered, realizing she was caught. "N-nothing. I just still don't understand why she was allowed back after what she did."

"After what people said she did," Scorpius remarked. "We never found out the whole story, did we?"

"You're awfully quick to defend her," Rose said. "There's a fire in the Great Hall at the end of our first year, and Lilith Cross suddenly disappears from Hogwarts? I don't understand why you can't put those things together."

"You know what'd be a lot easier?" Sylvia suggested. "Maybe if we just ask her what happened…"

"Oh, because I'm _sure_ that'll go over well," Scorpius snarked. "'Hullo, Lilith. You remember two years ago? You don't happen to remember setting the Great Hall on fire and trying to off all of Hogwarts, do you?'"

"Maybe you should talk to her about it," Sylvia remarked. "She seems to like you for whatever reason."

"Like me?" Scorpius repeated incredulously with a scoff. "We hardly know each other."

"Maybe we should leave her alone," Albus suggested. "Maybe she _wants_ to be left alone."

"She didn't sound like someone that wanted to be left alone," Scorpius said. "Don't you all understand anything about…" he trailed off. "No. No, you wouldn't."

Rose glanced at Albus for a moment, an expression of obvious bewilderment on her face. She opened her mouth, presumably to ask Scorpius to explain himself. She must have decided it wasn't worth the argument, though, because she promptly closed her mouth and went back to her parchment.

"You can tell Hugo I won't suck his soul out if he gets too close, by the way," Scorpius added several moments later, prompting Rose to look up from her parchment in shock. Scorpius did not meet her eye, though, and had already gone back to his food.

The two didn't talk for the rest of the morning, and Albus had no inclination to try to make them. Sylvia, on the other hand, was trying to overcompensate for the silence by greeting every single acquaintance she passed by in the halls. This finally got Scorpius to speak, between their first Transfiguration class (where Sylvia had lost another five points for Gryffindor – probably for looking too happy) and History of Magic.

"How do you know so many people?" he asked.

"Because I actually talk to them," Sylvia replied. She didn't see Scorpius's eye roll, though, because she was too busy gamboling across the hall to accost a young boy. "Gil! There you are!"

The young boy, a sandy-haired Gryffindor, looked up at Sylvia with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment. Much more bewildered was the other Gryffindor boy next to him, who seemed confused for a moment before he realized that Sylvia wasn't talking to him.

Sylvia's face fell. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"You've met all the first years, too?" asked Scorpius as he and the others approached.

"Just this one," Sylvia answered.

But Gil shook his head. "I don't think I know you." The first thing Albus noticed – it was hard not to, really – was Gil's heavy Irish accent.

"You _know_ me," Sylvia reassured him. "It's been a while. I think… five years? We were small tots last time we saw each other."

Albus could see the moment where the lightbulb went on inside young Gil's head. "Sylvia. That's right. I thought I saw your dad at the staff table. He works here now?"

"Yep. Flying instructor," Sylvia answered.

"Which is in ten minutes for us, by the way," the other boy mentioned. Gil grimaced.

"We've gotta go," he said. "Catch up later?"

"Sure," Sylvia said, and the two boys ran off.

Albus felt old suddenly, realizing how towering he and his third-year classmates must have looked to these two boys on their first full day of Hogwarts. He hadn't remembered being quite that tiny in first year, either…

"So you knew him from before Hogwarts?" Albus asked as they started towards Binns' classroom again, none of them all that anxious to arrive.

"He's my godfather's cousin's son," Sylvia answered. "I've only met him once or twice, back when we were both really little."

"Godfather's… cousin's… son," Scorpius tried to repeat. Evidently, he couldn't make sense of it.

"So you all know my dad," Sylvia said. It wasn't a question. "His best mate's my godfather. That's my Uncle Seamus. Uncle Seamus lives in Belfast and owns a business with his cousin, Fergus Reed. Gilbert's Fergus's son. Simple enough?"

Scorpius nodded halfheartedly, which seemed to satisfy Sylvia.

Albus, not for the first time, felt a pang of envious admiration for the girl. She seemed to make talking to other people, even those she didn't know well, look so _easy._

Albus had a hard enough time working up the courage to talk to _her._

"Albus, you're walking slow," Sylvia called from the front of the line. She was walking backwards and speaking to him.

"Uh, Sylvia –" Scorpius tried to warn, but it was too late.

"Oi! _Watch where you're going!_ " grunted a Hufflepuff in one of the older years. Sylvia had backed into him and nearly caused him to lose a stack of books that was up over the bridge of his nose. Albus silently registered the hypocrisy. Sylvia did as well – although not so silently.

" _You_ see _me_ , don't you?" she exclaimed indignantly as the Hufflepuff kept walking, his high stack of books teetering dangerously in the air. Albus got away from what looked like inevitable disaster. "No, of course you don't."

Scorpius and Rose had kept walking without them (although separately). When Albus turned around, Sylvia was right next to him.

"C'mon, you," she said. "It's time for our morning nap."

"We're going to History of Magic," Albus pointed out.

Sylvia smirked wryly. "Exactly."

And she took hold of his wrist, half-dragging him through the Hogwarts halls.


	6. Chapter 6: The Players and Their Pieces

Chapter 6: The Players and Their Pieces

It was somewhat to James Potter's surprise that the first two weeks or so of his fourth year at Hogwarts were extremely quiet and uneventful. Sure, there was the occasional rumor in the halls, but no more than what was usual for Hogwarts. Someone had cursed Coraline Pike, a second-year girl, with a pig's tail. No one could really prove it was a Slytherin, though, or if it was some other Gryffindor pulling a cruel prank. Her brother Isaac, apparently, thought it was the former. Coincidentally, a Slytherin second-year named Eddie Macmillan found himself hung up by his robes on the battlements of the castle a couple of days later. No one could prove it was Isaac Pike – although James got this weird sense that Professor Wenster, who had been tasked with finding the culprit, hadn't tried all that hard.

James, today, tried not to dwell on it. It was Saturday, and he was well-rested despite being up a bit earlier than he normally would have liked on a Saturday. But this was not any ordinary Saturday. Today was tryout Saturday, which meant Freddy was to pick the ten other players that would join him on this year's Gryffindor Quidditch club. There was already to be a spot open because of Greta's departure from the team. But as James would quickly find out, there would be more than one spot that needed to be filled.

"Where's Gemma?" he asked Freddy as several members of the team ate breakfast together in the Great Hall. Gemma Bridge, another fourth year, had been the Keeper for the team last year, and had done a fair job despite her inexperience. Asher Rodney, James's fellow Chaser, was sitting a few seats down and was midway through lifting a forkful of eggs to his mouth when he sat the fork down, his body visibly heaving with a sigh.

"She's done," Freddy said somberly, as if he didn't want to dwell on this conversation too long.

"What do you mean, 'done'?" asked James. Gemma hadn't said much of anything to James since the Quidditch season ended last year. He knew from a conversation he'd had earlier in the week that Kenneth Bourne was no longer with the team. He'd been promoted to Prefect and, unlike Greta had done, didn't think he could handle the Quidditch schedule, Prefect duties, _and_ his O.W.L. classes. The news about Gemma, though, was certainly news to James.

"She's not playing anymore," Asher Rodney said, a bit loudly, from down the table.

Freddy closed his eyes patiently. "Asher…"

"She can't grip well with her right hand anymore," Rodney said. "She doesn't want to risk breaking it again and not being able to hold a wand properly. So she's out."

Rodney was noticeably glaring at James, and the latter couldn't understand why. Sure, Gemma had suffered an awful injury in the final match last year, taking a Bludger clean off the wrist and having to take a Portkey to St. Mungo's to get the injury sorted out, but that hadn't had much to do with James.

"Why are you giving him that look?" asked Freddy, seemingly reading James's mind. "It's not his fault."

"No?" Rodney asked. Going back to his plate, he said, "She only ever gave Quidditch a try because she thought it'd impress Potter."

He went back to his food. James also went back to his, feeling guilty. Gemma had been nursing a crush on James for a while, which made things awkward indeed when he had to turn her down to the Valentine's Day Social the year before because he'd already agreed to go with Serra ( _completely different story,_ James thought as he watched Murphy scarf down potatoes opposite him at the table).

He couldn't have told her why he didn't feel the same way back then, either. Most boys noticed her best friend Madison Peakes first, but Gemma was a pretty girl. She had blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and black hair that she'd cut short, but was now back down to her shoulders. She was friendly, yet tough, and probably would have been very pleasant to talk to if she hadn't been so awkward around James to begin with.

He had been a bit dense, he had to admit to himself now, to fail to realize that she had feelings for him.

"So what you're telling me," Sylvia Thomas remarked, looking around at all of her teammates, who all happened to be male, "is that I'm the only girl on the team."

"For right now," Freddy conceded. "We still don't know what tryouts will look like. I already know one first year girl that's probably coming out."

"Who's that?" asked Sylvia.

"Athena," Freddy said. Then, as if the last name were _extremely_ important, he added, "Athena Wood."

Scorpius's eyebrows both jumped.

"Wood, you said?" he repeated.

"Thought you'd recognize that name," Freddy said.

James recognized it, too; a man named Wood had been captain for several of James's Quidditch-playing family members during their student years. After a short career as a Keeper for Puddlemere United, he jumped into managing Quidditch clubs. Most recently, he had been the manager for the Appleby Arrows, a former punchline of the British and Irish League that had seen its fortunes turn around somewhat under his leadership.

Wood had been invited to Harry's birthday party this past summer, but was unable to attend because of being away in Lithuania for team business. Apparently, he'd unearthed a talented Beater that he was attempting to have transferred to Appleby from the tiny six-team league that Lithuania shared with Latvia and Estonia. Wood and his wife had "a couple of little girls," according to James's father. "I think the oldest one's about your age, Lily. Maybe you'll meet her when you go to Hogwarts."

Of course, James thought a bit sadly, everyone had assumed back then that the two girls would both end up in Gryffindor just like their parents had been…

James had seen precious little of Lily in the last couple of weeks, which he found had bothered him several degrees less when he was at Hogwarts and she at home for about four months at a time. What he had seen of her, though, she seemed alright. She even appeared to have made friends with Dathan's little sister and another girl in her year. James didn't fully trust them yet, though. The boys in Albus's year both seemed quite alright after he started – until one of them decided to take out his anger on Albus's face.

James had rather disliked Stephan Vaisey since that moment. The fact that he was extremely vocal in his hatred toward Slytherin House didn't help matters much. If, hypothetically, James were to start working to bring peace between the Houses, blokes like him were a liability…

"Oi! Heads up!" someone at the table yelled. It was a good thing James looked, too, because in the next moment something quite large landed on the table and bounced, upending a couple of mostly empty plates and goblets and sending a shower of food bits everywhere as half the team ducked for cover.

"Hell was that?" Sylvia uttered.

"God, you'd think the owls would know better than to do that with the larger ones. This thing's almost the size of the table," Freddy remarked in frustration. He was exaggerating, of course – but the paper-wrapped package was quite long, and seemed to be considerably thicker at one end. It almost looked like…

"A broom…" Desmond McLaggen, who was sitting to Freddy's left, said. "It's a broom. Can't you tell by the shape?"

"Anyone order a broom?" Freddy asked. Everyone else on the team shook their heads.

Scorpius tilted his head in recognition, then reached for the large package. From its side he pulled what appeared to be a sealed, furled scroll. He broke the seal and, before a suddenly silent group of acquaintances, read the letter at barely over a mutter…

" _Our dear son,_

 _What you did last year with my old Nimbus meant so much to me, and I will remember it until the day I die. Your mother and I are so proud of you, and of the man you are becoming."_

He stopped for a moment and swallowed hard.

" _You know better than I do that we cannot move forward if we continue to hold on to the past. The future of our family should not ride on a derelict broom made last generation. You have proven your skills, now go and win. 'Blood and glory.'"_

"'Blood and glory'?" Sylvia queried.

"The Malfoy family motto," Scorpius answered. "Or a version of it, anyway. The original was in French. That's where the first Malfoys came from, centuries ago."

"D.L.M." Sylvia read from the letter she had taken from Scorpius.

"My dad's initials," Scorpius explained.

"So this broom's yours," Sylvia deduced so cleverly.

"I guess so…" Scorpius said, not sounding very happy for someone who just got a new broom, James thought. Very businesslike, he grabbed the package containing the broom off the table and announced, "I'll be at the practice pitch."

And off he went, broom in hand still unwrapped.

"He never changes," Sylvia chuckled, shaking her head. "Can't even get a smile out of him."

"So, what do you think he got?" Freddy asked, sounding genuinely curious – and why not? An upgrade to Scorpius's broom made the whole team better. Scorpius was already nigh unstoppable as a Seeker with his father's Nimbus Two Thousand and One, which (despite the model number) was made when James's dad was at school in the nineties, and had to be well over a quarter century old.

"Shadowfax. _Has to be_ ," McLaggen guessed. " _His_ parents' money?"

"Might not be that easy," Sylvia said. "There are places, Scorpius said, that just _won't_ sell to his father – even after all this time. Also, the Shadowfax is fast but it's too delicate for high-level Quidditch. That's why Ireland got steamrollered last World Cup."

"Hey!" Murphy, who was at the table as well, cried indignantly.

"It's true, isn't it?" Sylvia asked, a bit smugly. Murphy deflated. "My guess is Firebolt model – probably a Firebolt Supreme, like Krum rode five years ago. Or maybe the Vintage Reissue, he's always liked that one… either way, beats a manky old Nimbus any day of the week."

"What are you riding this year?" asked McLaggen.

"My dad's old Fourteen, like last year," Sylvia answered, sounding disappointed. James didn't know why. Cleansweep Fourteens were good brooms, even now at about seven or eight years old. "My dad wanted to get me an XV but the school told him he couldn't."

That was a bit stupid, thought James, but it made some degree of sense. Sylvia's father refereed the school's Quidditch league, so there were probably rules in place that prevented him from giving any one team in the league an unfair advantage.

"I never understood why they went from Twelve straight to Fourteen…" remarked McLaggen.

"Because thirteen's bad luck," Sylvia answered, badly concealing a tone of 'how do you not know this already?'

McLaggen, though, scoffed. "Bad luck. Who believes that?"

"Enough people that they thought it would hurt sales," Freddy said. "You'd be surprised the sort of measures businesses take to avoid losing money. Besides, it's not like Cleansweep _actually_ used model numbers in order. Back in my parents' day, they skipped most of the even ones for some reason. I think the XV is actually the ninth or tenth broom they've put out."

Freddy glanced toward the entrance of the Great Hall.

"Is that…?" he muttered. Then, he raised his voice: "Gemma – _Hey, Gemma_!"

Gemma Bridge, it just so happened, had just arrived. She was carrying a red-bound book, and opened her mouth in a yawn as she approached.

"You here by yourself?" asked Cecil Brookstanton. James rolled his eyes without even bothering to try to stop himself. After three years, the reaction to his fellow fourth year opening his mouth to say anything had become a reflex. "Where's Madison?"

"I don't know," Gemma asked, sounding uncomfortable. "She was gone when I woke up."

"Well, don't eat by yourself," Freddy insisted.

"That's alright," Gemma declined. "I'm not part of the team anymore."

"Says who?" Freddy asked, almost as if daring anyone else at the table to disagree with him. No one did, of course. "You helped us win the Cup last year – so there's room for you here as long as _I'm_ Captain. Besides… if I sent you away, Rodney'd never let me hear the end of it."

A couple of the other boys laughed.

James finally turned to look around – which proved to be a mistake, because Gemma caught sight of him. Right at that moment, the book she had been carrying slipped from her hands. She swore in dismay and bent down to grab it, but was beaten there by Asher Rodney.

"Here," he said, handing the book to Gemma. Gemma muttered something – either to him, herself, or no one in particular – and passed by Asher and the entire Quidditch team to a spot further down the table. Asher stood there shocked for a couple of moments, and then exchanged glances with Freddy.

"Go on," Freddy said. "Just don't be late for the tryouts. Ten o'clock sharp."

With a half-nod, Asher went after Gemma. James turned down to look at his cooling plate rather guiltily.

"I'm confused…" Freddy commented. "Are they actually dating or not?"

"Beats me," McLaggen said. "Say, while we're on the subject, I heard an interesting rumor…"

"Yes," Freddy interrupted him a bit impatiently. "Greta and I are seeing each other."

"Really?" asked Sylvia. "I've never seen you two together."

"Because we're trying not to draw attention to it right now," Freddy replied, somewhat through his teeth, as if he wanted to get off the subject.

"Why? You two make an alright couple," Sylvia remarked.

"It looks weird. I don't want people to start asking questions," Freddy said. "I'm Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain, and my cousin Dominique's a Prefect now, too. If people start thinking that's only because I started dating Greta…"

He trailed off. James wasn't about to add to the conversation either way, but he had heard the whispers over the last couple of weeks. Eamonn Temple, who was the sixth year Prefect, was reportedly not terribly happy with Dominique being made a Prefect. He seemed to think the Weasleys got preferential treatment because Neville Longbottom was close with the family. James understood the accusation on one layer, but he disagreed. If anything, James thought, the fact that Neville was friends with James's parents made him harder on James than he was on everyone else.

Unable to resist indulging his curiosity any further, James glanced down the Gryffindor table to where Gemma Bridge and Asher Rodney had taken seats next to each other far away from anyone else. A metallic clink echoed through the Great Hall for a moment as Gemma dropped a fork. After a feeble and pointless reach for it, she buried her face in her hands.

James looked down at his food again, biting his lip. " _She only ever gave Quidditch a try because she thought it'd impress Potter."_ That was the way things went, wasn't it? One way or another, James always wound up getting someone hurt.

"Hey," Murphy called, and James looked up. "It's not your fault. Stuff happens."

Yet his best friend's attempt at encouragement was undermined somewhat; in looking at his face, James also saw the small scar he had under his right eye. It was a relic from their fight with Morris-Beal-as-Garrick-Claudius the year before. And all it did, really, was provide more evidence to prove his point.

Murphy was different, though, at least that was what James tried to tell himself. He had warrior in his blood. There had been a Murphy in either the Auror Office or Hit Wizard force for three generations, and Richard Murphy planned on being part of the fourth.

That was what had bonded them in the first place, the warrior's blood. Their fathers had fought together after a fashion – in separate fronts, but the same battle. Harry Potter was an Auror trainee about the same time as Patrick Murphy, who was several years older, had risen to the rank of Captain with the Hit Wizards in Belfast. In (relative) peace time, it was the Aurors who specialized in capturing dangerous practitioners of Dark Magic, and the Hit Wizards who were responsible for policing general crime in wizard communities. After the war, though, those two roles bled together. A lot of Hit Wizard squadrons had someone with some Auror training in the ranks, just in case…

Potter and Murphy had been allies in the fight twenty years ago. Now their sons hoped to continue that friendship. Even so, James could not help but wonder if Murphy was perhaps wasting himself on a fight that he had not chosen. He seemed perfectly content sharing a piece of whatever glory or danger James came into. That bothered James. He didn't deserve a friend like Murphy, and he knew it. More importantly, Murphy deserved better than to consign himself constantly to James's shadow. Not that it was very difficult, of course. Potters and Weasleys tended to cast large shadows anywhere they walked. They even had (James stole another glance at Gemma and Asher) the luxury of having members of the opposite sex fall for them and not even noticing.

"He's too quiet," James said, apropos to nothing.

"Who?" Murphy asked.

James glanced at the rest of his team, most of whom were talking and laughing merrily.

"Malcolm," James answered. Murphy couldn't hide the 'should have seen that coming' grimace on his lips. "I mean, it's been two weeks, and no moves."

"Well, nothing big's happened yet, either," Murphy replied. With a smirk, he suggested, "Maybe he's not as eager now that he knows there are eyes on him?"

James scoffed. "With his ego? The day he cares about our opinion is the day hell freezes over."

Murphy gave a sad smile, and a nod of concession. "Have you heard from her yet?"

"No," James replied tersely. "Nothing. Not a damn thing."

Murphy sighed. "Can't run forever, mate."

"You're one to talk," James replied, a bit needled by Murphy's attempt at advice. "We've already had a couple of double periods with Ravenclaw, and you haven't managed even a 'hello' to Serra. You know I ran into her at King's Cross? You were the first thing she asked about. Not me. Not even Brynne, with everything she'd gone through…"

"You've told me," Murphy replied. "Once. A day. _Every_ day."

"And I'm going to keep telling you until you get the point," James said stubbornly. "What the hell happened with you two, anyway?"

"It'd take too long to explain, alright? Can we just drop it?" Murphy said, more tersely than he usually spoke.

James decided to honor his wishes. Murphy hardly ever got that angry.

The tryouts were nothing unusual. There were a couple of quite skilled flyers, as well as a few people that looked like they had never hopped on a broom a day in their lives. Gemma was invited to the tryouts – Freddy had wanted an outside observer to help him take notes – but she declined. One first year showed up, but apparently he wasn't allowed to try out for whatever reason. It almost caused a huge row, but Freddy took the boy aside and must have explained something satisfactory to him, because he walked away without further incident.

Freddy's decisions on the open roster spots were quick, as he had said there would be. Everyone rode as a formality, but it was an open secret that Freddy wasn't planning on doing much messing with a team that had won a championship the year before and was returning all but two of its members.

As James observed the bulletin board early Sunday morning and found the posting of the roster, it confirmed much of what he already knew or suspected. Sylvia was now going to be playing Chaser on the first line alongside James and Asher Rodney instead of coming off the bench. The team wasn't any worse for it; Sylvia was a very good flier.

Somewhat to James's chagrin, Gemma's vacated Keeper position on the first line had been filled by Cecil Brookstanton. His backup was to be one of the team's newcomers. Athena Wood, a brunette first year that was tall for her age, had tried out for the team just as Freddy had predicted. She was a shade better overall than anyone could have guessed, though. Her favorite position was Seeker and she was fair in that tryout – much to James's relief, as it meant that perhaps he would never be called on if Scorpius went down in a match. She had a knowledge of the Keeper position far beyond her years. And while her Bludger aim needed a bit of work, she knew the basics of the Beater position enough to play there if things ever got dire.

Alphonse Gold, who had made the team last year, had encouraged his friend to try out. Dorian Cresswell flew well but was inexperienced. Freddy decided to try him at Chaser for the time being.

Also joining the reserve team was Coraline Pike. To Freddy's slight and very private disappointment, the pig's tail she had received days earlier did not join her.

All in all, James had seen teams of far worse flyers assembled. But if Ravenclaw returned most of their team from the year before, as expected, things weren't going to get any easier.

"Oi," a voice called, its apparent owner tapping James on the right shoulder. He looked that way and saw no one. When he whirled back around to his left, he caught sight of the back of Murphy's head.

"Took you long enough," James said, and he went to follow his friend.

"…So where's Croyle been?" he asked after a while as they started down and around Hogwarts's chaotic main staircases. James made another mental note that today was Sunday – the path down the stairs to the Great Hall was slightly different than it was on Saturday. James had no idea why the founders of Hogwarts had decided such a thing was necessary. The professors theorized – or, at least, they liked to tell their students – that it was supposed to be a lesson in attention to detail. James simply found it frustrating.

After three years, the only thing James remembered about the stairwell was which particular steps weren't actually steps. He'd twisted his ankle horribly the first week of his first year putting it through a vanishing stair. Of course, he'd suffered far worse injuries before and since, but the incident had, to put it mildly, scared the hell out of him.

"No idea. He's still seeing Starr, isn't he?" asked Murphy in response. Starr Reynolds was a very pretty fifth-year girl that was the Muggleborn daughter of a well-known Muggle actress and her partner. Murphy had a terrible crush on her their first year. Of course, he was barely twelve then, so all he ever did was elbow James when they passed by her in the hallway and comment about how pretty she was, and how she was going to be his first kiss one day. James only ever blushed and pretended Murphy hadn't said anything. Three years ago, he found the idea of ever kissing a girl terrifying.

Not much had changed. The reasons were just different.

Three years… that seemed like an eternity ago, really. He could hardly remember many details about his first year except that everybody wanted to talk to him in the first couple of weeks. Cole Murphy, Richard's brother, tried to get him to go out for the Quidditch team. So did about a half dozen other people – but James wasn't so inclined at that point.

Murphy muttered a swear as they reached a landing. James's eyes tuned in to some sort of groan.

"Isn't that your cousin, mate?" Murphy asked, elbowing James and pointing down to the next landing. James looked and, indeed, a young boy with auburn curls for hair was seated against one of the railings and appeared to be examining his ankle.

"Damn. _Hugo!_ " James exclaimed, accelerating.

"Fourth from the bottom!" Murphy called – which was good, because James was just reaching the fifth step from the bottom. His heart jolted and he managed to skip over the danger spot. By the time he reached the bottom of the flight, Hugo was pulling himself up to his feet.

" _Bottom._ I thought it was fourth from the _top_ ," he groaned wearily, leaning against the rail for support. He then used a word or two that James was _sure_ he had learned from Uncle Ron.

"Rose didn't tell you?" James asked. That wouldn't have been like her, James thought. She was a repository of information, all too eager to let you know how much she knew. That said, she loved her brother more than anything and would have wanted him to be as prepared for coming to Hogwarts as possible.

"Of course she did. I just didn't remember it out of all the five hundred _other_ things she told me," Hugo groused. "So _stupid_ …"

That made more sense. One of Rose's weaknesses was that she had no concept of other's people's attention spans, and couldn't gauge when someone had reached the end of their capacity to absorb information. In a way, James thought as he failed to suppress a snicker, that made her a lot like Professor Binns…

"It happens," James said, trying to help Hugo up. "You alright?"

"I think everything's still attached," Hugo sighed.

"What are you doing out here by yourself, anyway?" asked James. "You know we're not supposed to walk the halls on our own anymore."

"Well, nobody in my room would get out of bed," Hugo deadpanned. "I'm _hungry_. How long was I supposed to wait?"

"You could have come down with the girls," Murphy remarked.

"Are you joking?" Hugo scoffed. "They scare me. Coral's already hit me in the forehead with a Bouncing Bulb in Herbology. Whoever that substitute is for Mr. Neville never said anything either. Farley or something—"

"Whoa – a Bouncing Bulb? She threw a Bouncing Bulb at you? Is she half-giant?" James asked. Bouncing Bulbs were a plant early-year students handled in Herbology. Fully matured, though, they could grow large enough to fill a doorway.

"No, one of the small ones," Hugo sighed. "We were re-potting them."

James grimaced. "Well – stick around with us until we get to the Great Hall," he suggested. "If Wenster catches you out here by yourself he's gonna get his knickers in a wad."

Hugo, somewhat reluctantly, agreed. So the three of them went down toward the Great Hall together. James assumed Albus and Rose weren't awake yet. James felt a bit awkward. He should have known Hugo well enough, he thought. Hugo and Rose were at the House most of the time before James first came to school. But then, that was just it. He hadn't seen much of Hugo since he had started at Hogwarts – probably a handful of times a year for each year. Maybe he didn't know Hugo as well as he thought he did. Not anymore.

A sprinkling of students was filing into the Great Hall for breakfast but the castle was still relatively quiet. Most students understandably slept in on Sunday morning – particularly a Sunday morning this early in the year. In most classes, the first tests weren't for at least another week. Other than that, there was nothing much else to do. He did believe one or two of the Houses had tryouts for their Quidditch teams. James had once had the thought to strongly discourage Lily from trying out now that she was in Slytherin. Their father said she had the makings of a good Seeker. She flew well enough – she had already passed her flying course, he was prepared to bet – but was never quite as interested in Quidditch as James was. James didn't want to have to play against her – much less as a member of Slytherin. Those matches always got tense and nasty. Half the team probably wouldn't be willing to hurt her, which was a problem. The other half of the team would just call it competition and do what they needed to do to win, which was also worrisome.

She'd never had a conversation about James about trying out. _But then,_ a nasty little voice in James's head said, _she never said she wasn't trying out, either…_

James was so lost in thought, that even when someone or something barreled into his chest at full speed, it didn't register immediately. He only truly noticed when whatever it was extended long appendages around his back and began squeezing the life out of him. 

" _Ouch_ ," he grunted. "What's—?"

He looked down and a mane of ginger hair was sprouting out of his chest.

"Lily?"

Hugo must have been halfway across the threshold of the Great Hall, but he immediately whirled around and came back out. "Lily?"

Lily, resting her ear on James's ribs for a moment, turned her head. In the next instant, she had released James and wrapped herself so tightly around Hugo, James thought she was going to crush him.

"Are they treating you alright?" Hugo asked immediately.

"Yes," Lily answered, as if wondering why this would even be a question. Hugo was afraid for Lily. If he had known about Slytherins what James knew about them, he would have known better. Most Slytherins, for all their reputation for individuality, wouldn't let any real harm come to somebody that had been Sorted into their House. In that very real sense, they and Gryffindors were not terribly different. "Why wouldn't –"

"Potter!"

James turned around looking for the voice. So did Lily.

A well put-together youth with a familiar face barged into the area. James took a step back to avoid his mass, but recognized the boy's face instantly from a previous Quidditch matchup. Here, though, he was in the black Hogwarts robes and wearing a green-and-silver badge.

Also, James was obviously an afterthought.

"What do you think you're doing?" the large boy asked Lily, acting like Hugo (who had stepped in front of her) wasn't even there. Instantly, James's instincts took over.

"I could ask you that same question," James replied, stepping in front of both of his family members. Murphy wasn't asked to follow, even wordlessly, but he did.

By a funny coincidence, the large boy they were confronting was also named James. But his surname was Bellamy, and he served as a Slytherin Prefect – given a loose definition of the word 'served.' Bellamy's eyes scanned those of the four younger students, obviously looking for any sign of weakness.

"You're not supposed to be out here alone, princess," Bellamy said. The nickname didn't seem remotely affectionate; James wondered whether that was a bad or a good thing. "Much less with these…"

"They're my family, you idiot," Lily said. James couldn't resist smirking. At the very least, the two or three weeks she'd spent in Slytherin House hadn't broken her spirit at all.

"Doesn't matter," Bellamy snarled, taking Lily's cheek about as well as you'd expect. "Rules are rules. You've got no business wandering the halls on your own in the first place. Go on. _Now,_ before I decide to dock you points."

Lily shot an apologetic look at James and Hugo and slipped into the Great Hall.

Bellamy turned back to James.

"They set our match all the way out in May," he said. "Try your best to stay in one piece until then."

And he went into the Great Hall as well.

"Who was that?" asked Hugo. "James?"

James jolted – he'd become fixated on what he thought was a form disappearing down the descending staircase that he knew went down in the general direction of Slytherin's dormitories.

"One of Slytherin's Prefects," Murphy answered glibly. "You can usually tell a Prefect by the badge and the stick they have permanently shoved up their arse."

Hugo frowned. "My cousin Dominique is a Prefect."

"I said 'usually', not 'always,'" remarked Murphy, starting into the Great Hall. Hugo followed him, and James brought up the rear, but not without looking over his shoulder at the staircase again.

 _It's early… my eyes are probably playing tricks on me._

The Hall was relatively empty. Only a handful of Gryffindors were at the Gryffindor table toward the windows. James briefly contemplated sitting at another table just for the hell of it. But given that Murphy and Hugo were already headed toward the House table, he knew it would only serve to irritate someone. Professor Sinistra, who was currently the only teacher at the staff table, would have to stand up and say something, and she didn't look to be in the mood for any funny business. In fact, she didn't look to be in the mood for much of anything except maybe a mattress and a pillow. She tried to eat a bite of food but her open mouth turned into a badly concealed yawn. James, like many students, wondered whether Sinistra, either naturally or because of her odd schedule as the Astronomy professor, slept all day like owls did.

Murphy and Hugo had stopped at the Gryffindor table, in front of another Gryffindor who had been eating by himself. James only saw the back of his head from here, but with a sinking of his stomach, quickly realized who it was. Why did Murphy stop _there,_ of all places?

"It's nothing personal, Weasley," Eamonn Temple mumbled through a mouthful of half-eaten food before swallowing. "I've just got to talk to Murphy in private. Just eat down the table a bit. Oh. Potter. I figured you'd be along sooner or later. Take a seat."

James was immediately suspicious. Eamonn Temple, the Gryffindor sixth year Prefect and a burly, sour sort, didn't like him. James knew that already.

Hugo, after getting a semi-glare from Temple, sulked away. Apparently, ten feet wasn't enough, judging by Temple's exaggerated waving motion. By the time Hugo sat down, he was nearly too far away for James to see.

"Take a seat, lads," Temple repeated.

"We were just going to—" James tried to utter, rather diplomatically, he thought, but Temple interrupted.

"I wasn't asking. And I'm not talking on behalf of myself. Wenster wanted me to track the both of you down," he said. "Trust me, if it were up to me, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

James exchanged a glance with Murphy, who looked just as unsure and suspicious as he did. Nevertheless, the both of them sat down. Temple ate one more bite of his potatoes. He chewed with cloying deliberation, as if he was in no particular hurry to start this dialogue. Finally, though, he swallowed and started speaking.

"I heard through the grapevine that you two are talented duelists, for what that's worth nowadays," Temple said. Glancing at James, he added, "I suppose you'd have had to inherit _something_ from your father. You don't look too much like him. Eyes aren't quite right."

"Oh, really?" James couldn't resist taking a dig. "Never heard that before."

Temple's nose wrinkled.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just do that. We've got bigger issues here," Temple deadpanned. "But, of course, I don't have to tell _you_ two that. So… what was it like?"

James just stared at Temple, in disbelief that someone with a soul could ask such a question. But the stocky boy gave a chuckle and a half-smile.

"Sorry. I was just curious, was all," he said. "You're both fourth years this year, right? Either one of you thought about going out for Prefect? I hear Longbottom, sorry sod that he is, is close with both your families."

James and Murphy exchanged glances again. Temple, whatever he was working his way around to asking, was a fool for showing his hand that early. _But then_ , James thought, _he's never exactly been subtle_ or _clever…_

"Murphy, you'd like to work in Magical Law Enforcement, right?" Temple asked. "Like your… well, your whole family, almost."

"What do you want from us?" James finally asked.

"Simple," Temple said. "Physical and magical attacks on Gryffindor students here at Hogwarts are more frequent and more severe than they've been in twenty years. A lot of us can take care of ourselves, of course, but some of our younger students – your lad Weasley over there, for instance – can't. There are only five of us Prefects this year, and some of us can't be bothered to ensure our House's safety."

Murphy's lips tightened, but James could see them twitching in the general direction of a disgusted curl.

"Professor Wenster has given me permission to… deputize a few skilled, trusted Gryffindors as a sort of patrol," Temple explained. "Break up fights in the halls, what have you."

"Why hasn't he asked us directly?" asked Murphy. "We both take Transfiguration from him. Same time, in fact."

"Unlike others, Professor Wenster doesn't have any time or desire to try to recapture his lost adolescent years," Temple said rather smugly. James frowned. "He's too busy actually teaching. His curriculum's very exacting, you know."

Temple, James thought, would have started at Hogwarts a couple of years before Neville Longbottom was promoted to Head of Gryffindor House. So he would have remembered Wenster's headship. It was obvious he thought very highly of Wenster, and not so highly of Neville. James wondered whether that said more about Temple, or about Professor Wenster.

"Also," Temple added, with surprising bluntness, "he's old. It's difficult enough policing the students and teaching at the same time. Some of our younger Heads of House can still bring it off, but Longbottom's chosen not to be here—"

"He had a kid, Temple," James interrupted, finally having had enough. "Or do you not read the _Daily Prophet_ at all?"

James, of course, hadn't found out via the _Prophet;_ Neville had sent an owl directly to the Potters that afternoon, before the wizarding paper ever made any sort of official announcement.

"Did he actually give _birth_ to the baby? Because if he did, he's got way more secrets than most of us even think he does," Temple chuckled cynically. "He could be here if he wanted. But he chooses not to. The reasons don't matter to me. I'm not even upset about it. He'd never approve something like this. Wenster's still got his balls, though, old as he is…"

"Oh, really?" James bit back. "Where was _he_ was Voldemort was raising hell all over Britain?"

"Teaching in America. I thought he's mentioned that before when asked," Temple said. "Or maybe he doesn't even answer the question anymore. You can only repeat yourself so many times before you get sick of it. But enough about that. He wants you two to join this force. I think he recognizes your toughness after that incident last year with… what was his name?"

James wasn't taking this bait. To say one name would be a lie. To say the other would make him look like a liar. He stayed silent.

"Speaking of 'names'," Murphy asked. "Does this 'force' of yours or Wenster's have one?"

"Professor Wenster's not the type for window dressing like that," Temple replied. "If I was going to pick one, though, I'd call it the Tower Guard."

"Tower… Guard," James repeated appraisingly.

"We guard the tower – Gryffindor Tower, that is – and all of its inhabitants," Temple explained. "Pretty simple, really."

"Maybe I'm just being overly suspicious here, but…" James started. "…it sounds like an excuse to start fights."

"You've got this all wrong, Potter. You wouldn't be getting an excuse to start fights," Temple said, raising his eyebrows. "You'd be getting the authority to finish them if needed. Right down your alley, isn't it?"

Murphy glanced at James. Temple noticed.

"Is that a 'no'?" asked Temple.

James opened his mouth almost immediately – but Murphy cut across him. "We'll think about it."

"Good answer," Temple said, swinging his legs out from under the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a House full of students to protect."

And he jumped up from the Gryffindor table and departed, not bothering to clean or move any of his dirtied dishes. He probably figured that the Hogwarts house-elves ('castle-elves?') would magic them down into the kitchen and take care of them. He was right, of course; James still thought it was a bit boorish. _At least stack your plates neatly…_

"'We'll think about it?'" James turned to Murphy. "It's pretty obvious he's trying to rope us into something we don't want any part of."

"If we turned him down flat, how do you think he would take that?" asked Murphy. "And how would Wenster take that? _If_ he's the one that put this together."

"He probably isn't." James pointed out something he thought should have been obvious.

"He _might_ be," Murphy argued. "My uncle, Roderick, was here at school when Wenster came back, so he remembers all about him. Uncle Rod said Wenster didn't take long to start stirring the pot after McGonagall hired him to replace her as Transfiguration Professor. Wenster said that every current and former member of House Slytherin should be investigated and questioned for connection to Death Eaters. A few parents and school governors called for him to be sacked, but a lot of them were in support of him. None of _them_ or their children were Slytherins, of course."

James frowned. "My dad _did_ say not to get on his bad side."

Murphy's nose wrinkled. "So we might be better in than out. But we don't know yet."

Murphy glanced down the table.

"We should probably join Hugo," he said. "I don't think your brother's coming any time soon."

James nodded in agreement, and the two stood.

 **Brynne**

Green firelight blazed warmly, hissing and barking every so often as embers leapt, flashed and disappeared. A particularly loud crackle prompted her eyes to snap open alertly, leaning back a bit further than she had been. It was still only early autumn, but today, the Slytherin common room was oddly cold – and not just in a metaphorical sense.

Ironically, with her eyes open, she saw a vision of the iciest glare staring back at her. She tried not to flinch at the vision of the face that she had seen in her summer nightmares. She was not afraid anymore. He was half a world away, and not her immediate concern.

Her concern was what he had left behind in his wake – right here.

"You shouldn't get too close. Those flames _will_ scorch your face off if you're not careful."

Brynne looked up and across the oblong table. There, sitting in another armchair, was another young girl. Her eyes were as green as the flames, but one was almost completely obscured by dangling ringlets and curls of jet black. She was presently drumming her fingers against the armrest of the chair.

"Kadric's taking his time," the raven-haired girl said cryptically. "I hope nothing's happened."

"He'll be fine," Brynne reassured… herself, really. "He's become good at not being seen."

"Hmm," the other girl uttered noncommittally. With as close to a half-smile as she ever got, she added, "You know…"

Brynne had nearly started daydreaming again. "What is it, Lena?"

"I'm not sure I should be the one telling you this, but…" Lena started. "Girl to girl… I think Kadric fancies you."

Brynne shook her head. "I doubt it. We don't know each other that well."

"What's his angle, then?" Lena asked. "If you don't know each other that well, how can you ask him to do something and… he just does it? I know why I'm here. And I think I know why _you're_ here."

"Maybe he's just better than either one of us," Brynne replied.

"What's that mean?" Lena queried. "Because he doesn't get anything out of it? I mean… I'm not a bad person for wanting to see people I care about, am I?"

Lena was surprisingly emotional. As she opened her eyes to stare into the fire again, Brynne could see them gleaming.

"We're going to fix this," Brynne tried to reassure herself. Again. "I promise we will."

"So you have a plan, then?" Lena asked. Brynne bit her lip patiently. Lena, from what Brynne knew of her, was always to the point. Sometimes brutally to the point.

"No," Brynne admitted.

"Promises, but no plan," Lena sighed. Looking down at her knees, she recalled, "You know, Steph promised me we'd be friends forever. That was another world, though. That was back when he actually believed that sort of thing."

"His parents split up, didn't they?" asked Brynne.

Lena nodded somberly. "He was seven. And as much as he wanted to go with his father, his father wouldn't take him. I think that hurt him worse than the divorce."

The way Brynne had always heard it, divorces were rare in the wizard world. Because wizarding society was so small and tightly knit, it was somewhat difficult to keep such things quiet. It was also difficult to find eligible candidates for a spouse once one got past a certain age. Wizards (particularly those that married other wizards) typically married young. A few married right out of Hogwarts, but most others still did so by their mid-twenties. Sometimes careerists took the plunge a bit later, but it was exceedingly rare to find a suitable life partner once you hit about thirty or so. Not unless you were marrying a widow or widower – and not many were able to stomach the exercise of trying to convince someone to love again. When you were dealing with someone who had lost their mate, that's usually what was involved.

Not to mention any children.

Brynne wondered if Flynn Lester had left the Orchard. He seemed to be leaning toward staying, at least for a while, when she had seen him last.

Her Aunt Flora wouldn't admit it to her verbally, but she found the man interesting. And Flynn fancied Aunt Flora – Brynne knew because Flynn had told his nephew, Rowan, and Rowan had told her.

" _Wouldn't that be a strange family_ ," she had mused on more than one occasion. Her, her aunt, Flynn, and Rowan, too…

"What's so funny?" Lena's voice cut into Brynne's daydream again.

She hadn't even noticed she was smiling or laughing. "Nothing."

Lena gave her one of those looks. Brynne had seen it a million times before from dozens of different people. _You're strange and sometimes I don't know why I hang around you._

The sound of pattering steps cut the conversation short.

Brynne looked toward the entrance to the common room.

"Everything go alright?"

Kadric Howell didn't say anything in reply; instead, he walked to the larger couch and leaned over it. He was sandy-haired and had a long, pensive face.

"I saw Lily Potter," Howell finally said. Brynne's eyebrows jumped. "She was on her way to the Great Hall to eat."

"She shouldn't be wandering around alone like that," Lena immediately remarked. "Did you make sure she made it where she was going?"

"Of course I did," Howell replied, as if a bit insulted. "She almost got there."

"'Almost?'" Brynne's eyes flashed.

"Without getting caught, I mean. She ran into James… and I think one of the Weasleys. The youngest one, that just got Sorted this year. But then Bellamy got to her…"

Kadric Howell sighed.

Brynne groaned. "Ambrose is a clever man, but some of his decisions on Prefects…"

She shook her head.

"You should go out yourself, when you get old enough," Howell suggested.

"Me, a Prefect?" Brynne scoffed at the idea. "No one in their right mind…"

"The other options are Amara Zabini and Marsha Flint," Howell pointed out.

Brynne's face fell into a grimace. "I don't think even Ambrose is blind enough to put a badge on either of those two. God. Anyway… we know Bellamy's going to be trouble. So is Pucey. So that leaves Farris and Boyd in seventh year –"

"Just Farris," Howell interrupted. "You think Boyd's going to help us?"

"He should," Brynne answered firmly. "He's Head Boy, after all. He's got to be neutral."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Howell answered. "Especially if Flitwick wants him to enforce the new rules. Actually, I don't know if _any_ Prefects should be in on this at all. If someone rats us out to the Headmaster…"

"I don't think Flitwick _wants_ things the way they are," Brynne said. "He's too… well, _nice_ for that. I'm sure he'd like to see nothing more than everyone getting along. But he has to try to keep the school safe. It's his job as Headmaster."

"Well, someone should tell him to start doing it."

Brynne didn't need to look immediately. She recognized the voice – and even if she hadn't, Lena's sudden glare gave it away. Lena Urquhart only ever glared at one person like that.

"Any news on Macmillan? Anyone know who did it?"

When Brynne and Phillip Bletchley reunited at King's Cross after nearly three months apart, it became rather obvious that the latter had spent the lion's share of that time stewing over their treatment by Flitwick toward the end of last year. Brynne still couldn't dislike him. Actually, she regarded him with a sense of pity.

So did their mutual friend, Tellius Nott, judging by the current expression on his face.

"Of course not." Phillip answered his own question, scoffing bitterly. "Because instead of handling the situation himself, he had the Head of Gryffindor, who everyone _knows_ hates House Slytherin, investigate his own house. How hard do you think Wenster tried to find anything, hm? And, if that weren't enough…"

Phillip's nostrils flared.

"I heard a rumor," Phillip said. "The Gryffindors are putting some sort of gangs together to give us a hard time."

Finally, Tellius Nott spoke up. "That's not what they _said_ , Phillip. They want to band together for self-defence."

"We take a class called 'Defence,' Tellius," Phillip retorted. "But anyone with _half_ of half of a brain knows what it's _really_ for."

Tellius grimaced and began to follow Phillip back toward the dormitories, shaking his head as he went.

"Phillip."

Brynne spoke; Phillip stopped.

"You're better than this. I hope you know that."

Phillip swallowed for a moment. "Not good enough, obviously."

And he walked off, leaving Tellius there with Brynne and the others. Tellius fiddled with his glasses and seemed to be contemplating saying something. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it and turned away.

After four or five paces, though, he apparently changed his mind.

"You're making this worse."

"Stop it," Brynne choked out. "I don't expect you to understand. He wasn't in the room with us."

"He would have been, if you'd given him half a bloody chance," Tellius said loudly. Then he took a sigh, obviously trying to calm himself. "You're basically going to take on the Headmaster of Hogwarts for a bloke that won't look you in the eye anymore—"

"That's not the reason," Brynne interrupted. Then, swallowing hard, she said, "That's not the only reason. If you'd been listening to me at all for the last two years, you'd know that."

Tellius frowned, and then looked at his shoes for a moment.

"Tellius," Brynne finally said. She _was_ pleading, she supposed, but she wished it hadn't come out sounding so desperate. "You don't have to…"

Tellius looked up again, and his gaze was hardened. " _Someone_ has to."

And he walked away.

The sorrow of it all literally made her head spin, and she leaned against the back of the chair to keep from toppling.

Part of her always sort of knew it would come to this. She knew what it could mean if she took this path. That didn't lessen the pain. But she had to keep going. Not just for herself. For Lena and Kadric, so they could be with their friends and family.

"If I could make a suggestion here…" Kadric, it was obvious, was still terrified of her. Brynne wished he wasn't. "You look like you could use a bite to eat. And I'm pretty sure Lily's in the Great Hall on her own. We shouldn't just leave her there."

Brynne shut her eyes tight, blinked the wetness back out of them, and put on a smile for their sake.

"You're right. Let's go eat."

She and her new friends had united over loss. They were all separated from loved ones – and, one could argue, separated from their true selves – because of the current state of things.

That was the worst sort of specter. And Brynne Walter had long ago determined to fight it until it disappeared.


	7. Chapter 7: The Beginning

Chapter 7: The Beginning

October's approach was almost dizzyingly fast this year, punctuated by rain and a nosedive in the temperatures after a warmer-than-usual September. 

This was much to Albus's dismay, as his cold-weather things were still packed away in his trunk, and he'd had to rummage through it to retrieve them. Given that he'd already overslept, it hadn't been the best start to a Monday he'd ever had.

Today, on the other hand, was Tuesday. His longer robe was already hung up on a hook near his four-poster bed. As he patted it down, he realized it was dry from yesterday evening's rain, which was also a good thing.

The other good thing about Tuesday was that he didn't have to open it with Transfiguration and History of Magic. The Monday morning slate had been very nearly as bad as Sylvia had predicted. Even Potions, which they took after lunch, had spiked in difficulty and wasn't quite as enjoyable as Albus had found it the first two years. At least Ambrose was somewhat nice, though. The same could not be said for dry, droning Professor Binns or the perpetually curmudgeonly Professor Wenster. He'd lost his temper on poor Nina Edgerton just that past Friday, then docked five points from Gryffindor, to boot. To be fair, Nina had asked him when Neville was coming back – which not only had nothing to do with Transfiguration, but was naturally a sore point, as Neville's ascension as Head of House Gryffindor had only been made possible by Wenster's demotion in the first place. _But then_ , Albus thought, _that's probably why he was demoted. Blokes with that sort of attitude don't make good Heads of House._

The third good thing about Tuesday was that he and his friends all got to eat supper together. Sylvia and Scorpius were off Quidditch practice, which ran Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, just like last year. Albus personally thought three times a week was mad with everything else going on. But it had apparently worked well enough for a Quidditch Cup the year before, and Freddy wasn't about to try to fix something that wasn't broken.

The fourth good thing about Tuesday was that it was a day closer to Friday…

"Al," Scorpius called from somewhere behind where Albus was sitting at the edge of his bed. Albus craned his neck around to see the tall blond boy approaching with a towel draped over his bare neck and chest, shining with shower water. He really was quite thin and pale. Albus supposed it just ran in the family. Obviously, they were all fed well, the Malfoys… "Alright?"

"Sure," Albus said, finding Scorpius's extra concern a bit strange.

Scorpius tilted his head, assuming an expression that was more serious than normal. "You _do_ know what today is, right…? Second Tuesday of October?"

"Today's the 8th," Albus recited, not realizing what Scorpius was getting at.

"Let me see if I can do this right," Rowan Lester said from across the room, clearing his throat. "' _On next Tuesday, the eighth of October, we will be meeting for class at the Come and Go Room on the seventh floor. You will need only your wands.'_ "

"That was bloody awful," another boy's voice sounded from across the room. "You don't sound anything like Professor Malcolm."

"Let's see you do it better, then, McLaggen—" Scorpius started on their roommate – but Albus's heart had already started jolting with nervousness. There was only one reason Malcolm ever summoned the Defence Against The Dark Arts students to the Come and Go Room with only their wands…

"I've been working on my aim with the Stinging Hex Malcolm taught us," Sylvia commented enthusiastically at breakfast. She, unlike Albus, had remembered _exactly_ what today was, and seemed a bit more energetic than usual. "Trying to hit smaller targets. Head, hands, knees, ankles… nadgers…" She raised her eyebrows and looked around the table for shocked expressions.

Rose didn't acknowledge that anything had been said. But Scorpius winced. Albus, meanwhile, tried not to ruminate too long on the awful levels of discomfort that would result from taking a Stinging Hex to one's nether regions.

"Please don't," Scorpius begged. "You know Malcolm would love an excuse to throw you in detention. We've got the match coming up in a few weeks, and we'll need everybody. We get Ravenclaw first this year, remember?"

"Ravenclaw. Right. Not Hufflepuff. Besides – I owe Mack one. He nearly killed me in our match last year with his mad flying," Sylvia said darkly.

"Wait…" Scorpius uttered. "Are you talking about Alex or Andrew?"

"'It's _Alexander_ '," Sylvia replied, mocking the Mack twin that always insisted on being called by his full name. "And I don't know which one. I don't care, really. Maybe if I hit one, they'll both leave me alone."

"Or you'll piss them both off. You know he's not going to match either one of us against the Macks," Scorpius said. "He's not thick. He'll give you Bower or someone else he doesn't care about. Or Adriana."

Adriana was the third Mack sibling, and only girl. Bower was some nondescript bloke, even as far as Hufflepuffs go. Albus didn't remember him being significant for much.

"You'd better not try to duck out of this one, Al," Scorpius remarked after a few more bites of food.

"I haven't tried to duck out of any of them," Albus defended himself, a bit irritated.

"What about the last one?" probed Scorpius.

"That wasn't my fault," Albus explained. "Brynne Walter put her wand on the ground. She wouldn't duel me."

Scorpius frowned. "I've seen her around a lot this year. Something about her doesn't sit right with me."

"Wasn't she in the room with James?" Sylvia piped in. "You know, when…"

"That's the rumor," Scorpius replied, his diction deliberate. He gave an askance peek at Albus as if waiting (or wishing) for him to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"Yeah, but Dad won't talk to us about any of it," Albus added. "I guess since it's an official case, he's not allowed."

Sylvia drummed her fingers against the table. "I wonder where that Gervaise Cornwall bloke ended up. Probably twiddling his thumbs in Azkaban, I'd guess. Wait, _can_ you twiddle your—"

"Gervaise Cornwall?" Rose repeated incredulously, looking up from a piece of parchment a second late as if just realizing Sylvia's error. Albus glanced at the parchment and realized that it was one of Rose's many pages of scrawled notes on incantations and the like. He supposed she was getting some last-minute preparation in before the practical. Not that she needed it. She wasn't a great duelist but she _was_ unpredictable, with a command of several minor hexes most third years hadn't yet been taught how to neutralize. Rumor had it that Marsha Flint's arms still itched from what Rose had done to her last spring. "Are you talking about Garrick Claudius?"

"Who's Gervaise Cornwall, then?" Sylvia asked, looking around at her friends, nonplussed. "Why does that name seem familiar…?"

"He played Chaser for England World Cup before last," Scorpius remarked with the air of someone informing everyone that the sky was blue. Sylvia's jaw went slack for a second. "Unfortunately."

"How do you remember that kind of stuff?" groused Sylvia.

" _You_ don't remember?" asked Scorpius. "Gervaise Stonehands?"

"…Oh!" Sylvia uttered after a moment's contemplation. Then she let out a laugh. "Yeah, I remember him. His real name's Cornwall? I grew up thinking 'Stonehands' was his _actual_ surname."

"Well, it's all anybody ever called him after 'that' match," Scorpius remarked. "He was the first member of the Cannons to make England's national team in twenty years. Then, in the first Cup match, he dropped the Quaffle eleven times. That was the most by any one player in a hundred years. Needless to say, England didn't make it past the first round. And Cornwall was basically blackballed from the Brit after that. Nobody would sign him."

The 'Brit' was the most commonly used nickname for the British and Irish League – much to the irritation of the Irish.

"Anyway…" Sylvia sighed. "I meant Cadwallader. Or whatever his name was."

"Claudius," Rose sighed, palming her face. "It was Garrick Claudius. Honestly…"

"Claudius – that's it. Just trying to make sure you were paying atten…" Sylvia trailed off – Rose had gone back to her parchment midway through Sylvia's sentence. This gave Sylvia the chance to affect a snooty facial expression as she silently mouthed ' _Claudius'_ in Albus's direction. He had to resist the urge to laugh.

"Probably in Azkaban, like you said," Rose said, standing up.

"Where are _you_ going?" asked Sylvia.

"Class?" Rose replied, as if this should have been obvious. Then, perhaps realizing it wasn't, she added, "We've got twenty minutes and the Come and Go Room's a long walk from here."

The three others exchanged glances after she left and, with the same air of resignation, all stood up from the table.

They arrived at the seventh floor corridor to find that they were among the last to do so. The other students, stood in small knots with members of their own House. The Mack siblings seemed to be huddling for some reason or another.

"You cut it awful close," McLaggen piped up first. "You know how much Malcolm loves docking points from the Gryffindors."

"Where _is_ Malcolm, anyway?" Scorpius asked. "Thought he'd be up here already."

"Probably sneaking in a couple of minutes of snogging with Gladstone somewhere," McLaggen chortled. Vaisey, standing next to him, rolled his eyes distastefully. But Liz O'Connell and Nina Edgerton were nearby as well. They turned to each other and giggled. By this point, despite their best efforts (which were, admittedly, somewhat feeble) the relationship between Professors Malcolm and Gladstone was an open secret among the student body.

"I hope you've got your practice in, Potter," Vaisey said. He'd probably thought his tone sounded casual; however, every word that seemed to come out of Vaisey's mouth nowadays was conspicuously mixed with at least a drop or two of venom. Albus discreetly drifted elsewhere, so as to have as many people between him and Vaisey as possible.

Albus jumped more than he meant to when Scorpius nudged him with an elbow.

"You alright, Albus?" Rose asked. "You seem a bit—oh."

Rose had seen… _something_. Albus went to give Scorpius his due attention, and it became obvious when everyone saw the same thing. Lilith Cross had appeared, leaning against a wall far away from her Hufflepuff classmates. Scorpius asked Albus for permission with his eyes. Albus, wordlessly, didn't understand why that was necessary. Nonetheless, he followed Scorpius, over Rose's feeble " _Hey, what are—"_ and past the other Hufflepuffs, none of whom had acknowledged Lilith's existence, let alone her presence.

When Albus came face to face with Lilith, he realized, to his mild chagrin, that she was probably an inch taller than him. That said, she was still a shade shorter than Scorpius, who was as long-limbed as anybody in their year. There was a silence, during which no one said anything. Lilith seemed to be studying both of their faces.

"You've got gray eyes," she said. Scorpius's raised-eyebrow reaction threw his irises into sharp relief. "Ah… sorry. I just never noticed before."

She gave an apologetic smile to Scorpius.

"I'm assuming you have something to say to me," Lilith said, "since you bothered coming all the way over here."

Scorpius seemed to want to speak, but froze. 

"Potter? Malfoy?"

Both Albus and Scorpius turned to find themselves face-to-black-robes with Professor Malcolm.

"What are you doing here?" asked Hufflepuff's Head of House.

Albus, in his head, had an answer, but was checking it for tone. Eventually, it came out in the politest way Albus could muster. "Having a conversation… sir."

Scorpius glanced at Albus with a brief, but perceptible expression of disbelief, and then looked at Malcolm.

"You know unsupervised interactions with students from other Houses are against the rules," Malcolm said. "You should be fortunate I'm in a good mood."

Malcolm _did_ seem less stone-faced and grouchy, so there was that. He peered around Scorpius and a smile crossed his face. Albus grimaced uncomfortably. _No one's_ smile should have been that terrifying to behold.

"Miss Cross," Malcolm intoned. "I should have known. Your sister always says you've got a knack for being a thorn in the side, and I'm inclined to agree with her."

There was an extreme venom in the eyes of Lilith Cross as she glared at Malcolm's back. He had approached the middle of the throng of third years and started talking. Under Malcolm's speech, however, Albus could hear Lilith's voice in a muffled mutter that sounded like it was strained through her teeth:

" _Then you should have killed me."_

Albus had no time to reflect on this statement – or its many, _many_ implications – because not long after that, Malcolm had ushered them into the Come and Go Room and ordered them to line up by House. The Dueling Room, Albus noticed, had changed a bit since last year. The raised dais where the practice duels would presumably take place, still existed; however, it was wider in one direction than Albus had remembered it. Also, benches were now on either side.

Albus assumed Malcolm had made the room to alter ever so slightly depending on who he brought in with him. In this case, the sides were clearly marked, with Gryffindor banners on one side, and Hufflepuff banners (which, unless Albus's eyes were deceiving him, were larger and somewhat more numerous) on the other.

"For your sake, I hope the little you lot _did_ learn about practical defence last year hasn't leaked out of your heads," Malcolm said. "If darkness descends on Hogwarts again like it has in the past, I won't let it be said that I did not arm you with the tools you needed to protect yourself."

"He likes hearing himself talk, doesn't he?" Scorpius murmured on Albus's right.

"I'd say," Sylvia replied on Albus's left. Albus glanced around for Rose, but she was sitting down now, still reading her notes. Next to her, to Albus's slight surprise, was Rowan Lester. It appeared he was trying to get a discreet peek. Unfortunately, Rose noticed, and yanked the parchment away.

Rowan didn't seem too fussed about this, and Albus heard him mutter something to Rose. " _Invisible ink next time."_

"Mr. Lester?" Malcolm had caught Rowan out – which, Albus thought mutinously to himself, only happened because Malcolm was looking for someone to catch. But Rowan stood up as cool as an October evening, hand in his pocket.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Since you're in such a chatty mood, how about you come up first?" Malcolm requested.

Rowan didn't seem at all nervous about dueling, period, let alone dueling first. He never talked much about what happened when he left Hogwarts in the summers with his godfather. Everyone just knew he was a bit different each time he came back. Two years ago he was a wide-eyed newcomer, a boy that, due to an unfortunate clerical error, didn't even know that he was a wizard until a week before the Hogwarts term started. He infamously had a bit of trouble with his wand technique in the first few lessons – mainly the part that went over which end of the wand to grip. Thankfully, he was a quick study – but that didn't stop his fellow first years from ribbing him about it on occasion for most of the term. Now, though, he knew as many spells as any of them – probably more.

"Mr. Mack," Malcolm called. "Let's see what you can do."

The two Hufflepuff boys surnamed Mack looked at each other, and then back at Malcolm. "Which one?" they chorused.

Amusingly, Malcolm tugged at the flesh on his forehead in annoyance. " _Flip a Knut or something._ _One_ of you. It doesn't matter."

One of the two Macks said to the other, "You take him. He looks easy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the other protested.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Adriana, their sister, groaned. "One of you go, or _I_ will."

Meanwhile, Rowan was already on the dais, tapping his foot as if eager to get this over with. Finally, one of the Mack boys ascended the dais, wand already held at his side. Rowan looked completely unbothered.

Malcolm paused for a moment. "Alexander, right?"

"It's Andrew," came the reply from the Hufflepuff third-year.

Malcolm sighed heavily. Clearly, he thought for some reason that he should have been able to guess the correct twin.

"It's alright," Andrew Mack consoled him. "Not even our own mum can tell sometimes."

"Has either of you considered a haircut?" Malcolm asked casually, prompting a couple of sniggers from the Hufflepuff side. "Wands at the ready."

Rowan raised his wand to the bridge of his nose. Andrew Mack followed suit. Then Rowan's free hand emerged from his pocket. Whatever the ball was he had brought to last year's duels – a rubber, Snitch-sized thing that bounced well – Rowan had evidently found two more of them at some point, and held all three now in the spaces between his fingers. Andrew Mack, who likely hadn't seen these before, flashed a grimace of confusion.

"Go on," Malcolm said casually.

Rowan let the rubber balls drop. Then he cast his spell; " _Incarcerous!"_

" _Diffindo!"_ Andrew stepped aside and let the long twine that had erupted from Rowan's wand snake past him. Then, with a slash of his own wand and the incantation, he cut the rope in half. "Please. Everybody tries that move—"

" _Oppugno!"_ Rowan shouted. Andrew was just then looking up.

" _Ouch! Oof!"_ Three rubber bullets bounced off Andrew Mack's face in quick succession.

Sylvia, beside Albus, let out a badly disguised wheeze of laughter.

"Oi! Mack!" shouted Desmond McLaggen suddenly. "What's it feel like to get beat to death by Lester's balls?"

"Five points from Gryffindor, Mr. McLaggen – inappropriate," Malcolm said loudly without looking at any of the Gryffindors.

" _Idiot_ ," Sylvia whisper-snarled at McLaggen, rolling her eyes. But McLaggen didn't seem concerned in the least bit.

"Completely worth it," Albus heard McLaggen mutter to Vaisey, who, in true Vaisey fashion, had no reaction to the moment at all.

" _Oppugno!"_ Rowan yelled again. Andrew Mack was ready this time.

" _Duro!_ " he called, almost sounding unsure whether it would work. But his three rubber assailants turned to solid stone and dropped to the ground with separate clatters.

Rowan gave a short grimace. Clearly he hadn't seen that coming.

"So are you going to duel me like a man or not?" Andrew Mack shouted tauntingly.

Rowan stood there, wordlessly and unflappably. Then he raised his wand and began whirling it in small circles.

" _Velos gyrari,"_ he incanted, continuing his motion. The invocation must have thrown Andrew off, because he looked around himself, searching for the effect of the spell.

It didn't take long to find.

Something had risen around Andrew's body, encircling him with a blurry halo. It rose up to his chest and then to his head.

Something in Malcolm's eyes flashed as he glanced at Rowan.

"Give up," Rowan advised. "It won't be fun for any bones you've got if you try to escape."

Andrew Mack frowned. "You're a cocky—"

He reached for the halo.

A horrible, firecracker-like _pop_ split the air and Andrew Mack withdrew his hand and crumpled to his knees immediately.

" _Drew_!" his siblings chorused.

Rowan sighed in disappointment. "I'll bet he broke his hand. He's going to need Madam Pomfrey."

"That won't be necessary," Malcolm said, stepping in. Grabbing a surprisingly gentle hold of a wincing Andrew's hand, he muttered an incantation. A moment later, Andrew was on his feet again, rolling his wrist and flexing his fingers, which all seemed to be good as new. Malcolm offered his other hand. Andrew stared at it for a moment. "Grab it," Malcolm said. Andrew, looking bewildered, clasped his right hand around Malcolm's wrist. With a sigh, Malcolm withdrew his hand, and said, "You're alright. No lasting damage."

Andrew muttered something. Malcolm stepped back.

"What was that?" he said. Whatever had caused the uncharacteristic gentleness in his manner was now suddenly gone.

Andrew cringed, head down. "I said I'm sor—"

"STOP!" Malcolm exploded, making everyone jump. Andrew didn't need telling twice. "Don't be sorry. _Learn_. Be better next time. And _don't_ drop your head in front of me. _Ever_."

Then, he raised his voice, apparently to address the class as a whole.

"Don't presume you can beat every adversary the same way. Monsters, fell creatures – those are easy if you've prepared yourself. Dealing with other wizards – human beings that use the magical arts, Dark or otherwise… that's where defending yourself becomes a challenge. Can anyone tell me why that is?"

A hand shot up, slightly outside of the knot of Hufflepuffs.

Malcolm appeared to hesitate for a moment. "Miss Cross?"

"Because you don't know their story," Lilith Cross's voice answered. "You don't know their abilities, what they've been taught, who taught them… an enemy you don't know can always be dangerous because they can always do something you don't expect."

The silence that filled the room was thick and icy.

"That's _a_ correct answer," Malcolm said, "But not the _only_ correct answer. In fact – why don't we see what you can make of… Miss Thomas?"

Albus glanced toward Sylvia.

"What's he playing at?" Scorpius queried at a whisper.

"I don't care," Sylvia interrupted him. "She doesn't scare me."

"Be careful," Albus advised her.

"Yeah, there's something off about her," Scorpius echoed.

But Sylvia smirked, almost flippantly, and said, "You worry too much. Both of you." She ascended the dais, her gaze lingering on Albus for several steps. An unnervingly calm smile was on her face as she turned to look at Lilith, who for the first time looked uncomfortable.

"What are you waiting for?" Sylvia asked after a few moments. "Draw your wand."

Lilith seemed to want to say something. She looked lost for a moment. Then, though, she pulled her wand from her robes. She muttered something.

"Can't hear you," Sylvia said. " _Expelliarmus!_ "

Sylvia cast the spell with a rather wide flourish toward her off-shoulder. Albus cringed; his father and brother had both told him at separate points never to flourish like that. Predictably, it gave Lilith enough time to duck out of the way and fire her own incantation – " _Oculus Aculeo!"_

A white jet of light burst forth from Lilith's wand – aimed right at Sylvia's face. Sylvia teetered away just barely.

"What was that?" Scorpius muttered. "I don't remember studying that one."

"Conjunctivitis Curse," Rowan's voice joined the conversation somewhere near Albus's ear, making him jump – he hadn't known Rowan was standing there. "Makes your eyes sore and swollen. Not comfortable. Useful if you're facing down a Welsh Green, though."

"Welsh Green… like the _dragon_?" Scorpius asked with a badly-disguised tinge of shock in his voice.

"Dragons really _hate_ having their eyes messed with," Rowan remarked. "So you'll piss it off, but you _might_ also have a good shot at getting away."

"You read this somewhere, I'm guessing?" Scorpius queried.

Rowan significantly hesitated to answer. "…Long story."

(Scorpius could only react with a toneless "…what?")

Albus couldn't help feeling a small tinge of jealousy for Rowan. It seemed like he'd learned more about the wizarding world in two summers with his uncle than Albus had in thirteen years.

A bright flash turned his and the other boys' attention back to the dueling dais, where Sylvia was stumbling backward, flailing and patting down one of the arms of her cloak as white sparks rose from it.

" _Igniculus!"_ Sylvia shouted, pointing her wand downward toward the region of Lilith's ankles. A small ember burst out of the bottom hem of Lilith's robes and ignited into a full, growing flame almost instantly. Lilith staggered backward and let out an utterance of mild surprise that, in Albus's opinion, wasn't nearly urgent enough for someone whose robes had just caught fire. Malcolm leaned forward and seemed for a moment to want to step in, but held himself back.

" _Diffindo!"_ Lilith didn't panic – with a slashing motion, she cut away some of the burning fabric, leaving a rather large swath of her robe missing. She watched it burn for a moment. "My mum just got me these."

She looked up at Sylvia again, her eyes flashing. " _Oppugno!"_

"What?" Rowan muttered. "Why's she –"

It became obvious when the still-smoldering chunk of fabric shot off the ground and toward Sylvia's head like a fireball.

Sylvia stood frozen for a moment, and then dug her feet in. It took a second or two for Albus to realize what Sylvia was going to attempt.

" _Sylvia, no!"_ he blurted out loudly. " _Don't!"_

Sylvia turned her head to glance at him, much to Albus's horror. For once, he didn't want her to look at him – he wanted her to _get the hell out of the way._

Then, though, Sylvia raised her wand at the approaching blaze, and with a swish and flick of her wand, she shouted:

" _Wingardium Leviosa!"_

The fireball stopped, rose into the air and guttered. But Albus's immense relief was short-lived.

" _Flipendo Duo!"_ a call came from the other side of the room. The spell hit an unprepared Sylvia with an audible thumping noise, and then threw her violently backward to the floor. She let out an awful cry of pain, as she hit the hard ground, bounced and rolled.

But her grip on her wand held – and she sat up.

" _Everte Statum_!" she choked out in a cracked yell. Lilith Cross, although a moment late in reacting, tried to block it, but the spell overpowered her defense and sent her flying backward through the air. She hit the ground even harder than Sylvia had, and the force of the landing separated her from her wand, which clattered to the ground and stopped as she kept rolling.

Everything went eerily still for a moment. Then Lilith started to stir. Malcolm stepped forward and took hold of Lilith's wand. By the time he approached to hand it to her, she was already on her feet.

"You've lost," Malcolm said with a chill in his tone, proffering her the wand.

Lilith snatched her wand back and walked away.

Sylvia scrabbled backward on her elbows and then tried to rise. A gasp escaped her and she flopped to her back for a moment. She took a few short, labored breaths, then tried to roll to her side. This time, her cry of pain was audible, and yet she kept going until she was to her stomach. Albus glanced at Rowan, who was not looking at Sylvia at all. He was looking right at Professor Malcolm, waiting for some sort of response to Sylvia's obvious injury. None came.

"Professor, she's hurt," Rowan finally said loudly.

"I've noticed," Malcolm said gravely. "She'll need Madam Pomfrey to look at her."

"But you just—" Rowan started, vaguely pointing in the direction of the Mack siblings.

"The occasional broken bone, I can take care of, if the break's clean," Malcolm interrupted him. "But I'm not so arrogant to believe I can fix every injury. Madam Pomfrey's the safer option."

By this time, Sylvia had scooted herself to the edge of the dais. Without any prompting, Albus ran over to stand near her. He was immediately thankful that Scorpius showed up to aid him. Sylvia was about to climb down into his grip and, while he wasn't scrawny as far as teenage boys go, he wasn't exactly a paragon of physical strength and fitness, either. In the end, Sylvia, with a slight hiss as she felt whatever injuries she'd sustained, let herself down with an arm around each boy's shoulders, and they guided her to the ground where she at last took her own feet.

Scorpius immediately backed away, leaving Sylvia to hang somewhat on Albus's neck for support. Albus tried to mouth something to him – but Scorpius just raised his eyebrows and walked away without a word. Albus had no idea at what, if any, point Rowan and Malcolm were at in their conversation, but he decided to cut in anyway. "I'll take her."

"No, you won't," Malcolm said very flatly. "You're up next."

Albus felt a rare surge of anger toward Malcolm, and nearly responded, when suddenly –

"I've got her," Rowan appeared next to them, and announced to everyone. Then, as if knowing Albus would question this, he added, "I should do it – I've already finished up for the day."

"Fine," Malcolm replied tersely, as Sylvia let go of Albus (reluctantly? Or maybe Albus was imagining things…) and attempted to keep her balance. One of her hands went immediately to her side as her face contorted in discomfort. "Door should still work."

"Should?" repeated Rowan appraisingly.

"It works," Malcolm reassured him. "As reliably as anything else in this castle."

That was a truthful answer, Albus thought. Hogwarts Castle wasn't just a school of magic; it _ran on_ magic. Very complex magic. Typically, the more ancient and complex the magic, the more chance there was for something to go slightly awry. In the case of Hogwarts Castle, that sometimes meant that doors, stairs, or magic portals would lead somewhere different than they were intended to go. Albus watched Sylvia limp off and Rowan follow her, hoping that didn't happen this time.

"Potter," Malcolm said insistently. Albus tore his eyes away from Sylvia and started up the stairs…

 **James**

James could hear the murmuring of far too many students before he even crossed the threshold of the Great Hall.

"I guess they're not staggering lunch periods anymore?" he muttered as they entered to a Great Hall that was mostly full at all four tables.

Richard Murphy was next to him and let out a groan of frustration. "Binns and his bloody ' _class is over when I say it's over_.' Whoever thought to have him teach a class right before lunch needs a swift kick up the— 'scuse me…"

A brown-haired girl and her black-haired friend were blocking the way.

"What?" the brunette turned around, but then her eyes lit up. " _Oh!_ "

Immediately, the girl threw her arms around Murphy's waist. Murphy seemed taken aback, less in confusion but more in shock at finding her here. He tried to pat her head but she sort of ducked away. " _Rick_ ," she droned. "I just combed it."

"Didn't do much," Murphy uttered with a smirk on his face – but he immediately got a punch in his ribs for his trouble.

" _Shut it_ , you," the brunette snapped. Then she turned to her black-haired friend. "Addy, this is my brother, Richard. You two haven't met before, right?"

"I've seen him around," Addy said a bit haughtily. It took all of two seconds for James to get the impression that Addy had a privileged upbringing.

 _But then, so did you_ , a voice in James's head answered. _And you don't act like that._

 _You're right, I don't,_ James thought back to the voice in his head. _…I don't, do I?_

Addy extended her hand, but not toward Murphy.

"So you must be James Potter, right? My name's Addison Finch-Fletchley."

James hesitated to shake Addy's hand, but finally did it. Then, hastily, Anna said, "We've got to go back to the dorms to pick up our afternoon stuff."

"Why didn't you bring it all with you?" asked Murphy.

"Have _you_ tried lugging your Potions things around all day?" Anna groused.

Murphy grimaced. "Fair point."

"See you later." Anna departed around Murphy and James. But she took her eyes off her brother for a moment, allowing him to get his palm to the top of her head. " _Hey_!" she squealed. Murphy just laughed. And the last thing either he or James heard from Anna before her voice faded was, " _You're_ just jealous because my hair looks better than yours!"

"I don't care about my hair _that_ much," said Murphy, primping down his shoulder-length, light brown locks. James raised his eyebrows and started walking again. "It's been almost a week," Murphy remarked behind him, and the humor in his voice was gone. "We live in the same place, and it's been damn near a week since I got to talk to my own sister. How mad is that?"

"Pretty effing mad… but that's the way things are now," James said, scanning the Slytherin table for any sign of his own sister – unsuccessfully.

His brother, though, he found – at the Gryffindor table, along with Rose and Scorpius. All three of them were eating rather solemnly.

"Al!" James exclaimed. Albus, looking lost in thought, didn't respond until Scorpius lightly hit his shoulder. James watched his little brother look up with a start. Clearly, he had something on his mind. "What's going on? You look like somebody just died."

"Hold on…" Murphy interjected, his eyes darting in their sockets as they did a quick scan of the table. "Someone's missing."

It took a moment for James to register the absence – he wasn't sure why. "Where's Sylvia?"

"In the hospital wing," Scorpius said tersely.

"Hospital wing? What happened?" James asked, sitting down.

"Defence," Rose said simply. "She got hurt during the practical."

"So you're here instead of up there with her?" asked James.

"Do you even need to ask that question? You know how Madam Pomfrey is," Scorpius answered hotly. He was glaring down at his food, his grip on his fork rather tight. The meal wasn't that bad, was it…? No, his mind was on something else…

"Don't eff with me, Malcolm," a loud voice called. James, Murphy, and several others in the Great Hall turned their heads.

"Temper, _Arbiter_ ," Malcolm and Arbiter Thomas were at the great doors. "You don't hear me trying to lecture you on how to referee our Quidditch matches, do you? Even though your performance in the last Hufflepuff match last year was nothing short of egregious—"

"Of course you don't lecture me, because you don't know what you're talking about," Arbiter Thomas answered.

" _Exactly_ ," Malcolm replied icily. He attempted to walk away, but the Arbiter wasn't done with him yet.

"Keep something in mind," he said. "Everything you teach theory on, I've lived."

"So you should know better than _anyone_ why this is necessary," said Malcolm. "Your daughter will thank me when it's all said and done, as will the rest of the families of these children."

"My daughter is laid up in a hospital wing bed because _you're_ being reckless," Arbiter Thomas responded. "I don't care what you're trying to prove – leave these kids out of it. Someone's going to wind up dying on your watch if you're not careful…"

"Don't throw stones in a glass house, Dean," Malcolm said coldly. "Didn't you have one of my first years break his wrist in a flying lesson just a couple of weeks ago? Making a functional, adult wizard or witch isn't always a safe process. But your daughter's a tough girl. I daresay she'll run into far worse trouble on the Quidditch pitch before everything's said and done."

"We got by just fine without practice duels when I was coming up in Hogwarts," Dean mentioned, at which point, Malcolm, who had been walking away, stopped and turned around.

"Did you? Did you really?" he asked significantly. Then he left Dean there to ruminate on his question. After several moments, the arbiter turned on his heel and stormed out of the Great Hall.

"Someone's not happy," Murphy commented rather unnecessarily.

"Oh? No kidding," Scorpius snarked nastily.

"Honestly, what's got you in such a mood?" Rose asked.

The glare she got in return from Scorpius was so terrifying, James was surprised Rose didn't catch fire on the spot.

"Isn't it a funny coincidence that every time Sylvia comes in contact with Lilith Cross, something bad happens?" Scorpius said.

"Whoa… hold on. Lilith Cross?" uttered James.

"Yeah. She's the one that jinxed Sylvia," Albus replied. "We've got our double Defence period with Hufflepuff."

The same was true for James and Murphy; but the fourth year practicals weren't until next week.

It was probably nothing… just (as much as he hated to admit to Malcolm being right) part of the territory that came with dueling other students. After all, Lilith, from what he had remembered of her, had always been somewhat advanced for her age. James and Murphy had started discussion over the Silentstep Charm right after coming back from the Christmas holidays last year. James still wasn't good at casting it effectively. Lilith was able to do it in her first year. That she would have been a strong duelist wouldn't have surprised him.

Unsettlingly, Sylvia was absent from Quidditch practice the next day. Apparently, the jinx Lilith had used on her had cracked a couple of her ribs, and while Madam Pomfrey was able to mend the bones themselves easily, Sylvia was still too sore to fly. Coraline Pike ran most of the drills with James and Asher Rodney instead. James didn't find this very fun. Rodney wasn't in the greatest of moods, and it felt like he was trying to take his fellow Chasers' hands off with every pass he threw. Coraline dropped one. Rodney yelled at her. Dorian Cresswell, one of the new reserves who was a classmate of Coraline's, didn't take kindly to this, and he and the older and considerably larger Chaser nearly came to blows before Freddy could separate them. Freddy decided at that point that the team had had enough, and ended practice a few minutes early. Rodney stormed off in a huff and Freddy quickly followed.

Cresswell was still boiling. His fists and forearms were clenched and he looked ready to punch anyone who got too close.

"You've gotta try and calm down," Alphonse Gold advised him.

"He was being a bully," Cresswell snarled. "I can't stand people like that…"

"He's not normally like that. You know that by now," Gold answered. "Something's got him in a…"

"That's not an excuse," Cresswell argued. He walked over to Coraline Pike, who had busied herself with inspecting her broom. James supposed that the Pike siblings' parents must have been well off. She (like Scorpius, who had been silently observing this scene from next to James) rode a new Firebolt Vintage Reissue. The broom, which was modeled after the original 1993 Firebolt but with a slightly better braking charm, was a hefty piece of hardware to be giving a twelve-year-old, James thought. Then again, he'd gotten a Cleansweep X-V the Christmas of his second year, so he couldn't exactly talk…

Scorpius whirled around and started walking back up toward the castle with his broom. James observed him for a moment and then decided to follow. Students couldn't walk the halls alone anymore, after all…

"Scorpius." After a while, he called after the blond-haired boy, who looked surprised at having been spoken to. He'd been lost in thought. He looked frustrated, and James had a good idea why. Scorpius hated seeing his teammates fight with one another. _Winners don't do that sort of stuff_ , he'd said once last year.

"What's going on?" Scorpius asked tersely. Honestly, even after two years, James didn't much know how to talk to Scorpius. He wasn't at all bad ( _particularly for what his family was,_ the nasty voice in James's head said again before he suppressed it) but he was strange. Scorpius had never completely found his command of social grace and he never seemed quite happy. James honestly didn't know how Albus and the others dealt with him. Well, no – he knew how Albus dealt with him. It was Albus. Getting along with people, particularly difficult people, seemed to come naturally to him.

"…How's Albus holding up?" James probed.

Scorpius grimaced. "He's your brother. Why don't _you_ ask him?"

"Because there's no way in hell he'd give me a straight answer," James scoffed. "He wouldn't want me to think he was being weak if there was something wrong."

Scorpius's lips drew long and narrow across his face. "Well, he won yesterday. I don't guess he would have told you. Dueling's not really fun for him."

James felt a surge of pride for his younger brother. "He won? How?"

"Disarming Charm," Scorpius explained. "He beat… uh… what's his name? Bower. From Hufflepuff. Took the wand from between his fingers at thirty feet and didn't harm a hair on his head. That's not easy, even at the best of times – and I know his mind was somewhere else."

By this point, they were inside again. James gazed at a point down the hall that he guessed was thirty feet or so away, trying to imagine Disarming someone from that distance without knocking them down while in the heat of the moment. Scorpius was right. It wasn't easy. "Somewhere else? What do you mean?"

Scorpius frowned. "It 'just so happened' Malcolm decided to have Albus go next right after Sylvia got hurt. He was going to take her to the hospital wing before… does he talk to you about _anything_ important?"

Scorpius had stopped and changed thoughts mid-sentence, which was strange for him. James hesitated for a moment, taken aback at the question. "No," James finally said, realizing it with more than a bit of shame. _I'm a rubbish older brother, aren't I…?_

"You should ask him about her," Scorpius suggested. "If you ever get a moment to yourselves."

" _You_ know, don't you?" asked James.

"I could tell you," Scorpius said simply. "But I shouldn't. So I won't."

James was nonplussed. "What's that mean?"

"I don't have a right," Scorpius replied simply. "But…"

He trailed off and seemed to contemplate for a moment.

"You remember the fire, right?" asked Scorpius.

"Well, yeah," James said. He was holding back information, too. He wondered if Albus had told Scorpius about James's involvement.

"Sylvia saved Albus's life and almost died trying," Scorpius said. James's heart skipped a step and his legs almost went with it, so great was the shock.

He stood stunned, staring at Scorpius for several seconds. "Merlin's balls. He never told me that."

Scorpius opened his mouth a bit. Then he bit his lip and gave a shake of his head, apropos to nothing. "Lilith Cross caused that fire."

"I know," James said immediately. Scorpius raised his eyebrows. "But she was cursed when…"

"Cursed?" Scorpius repeated. "That's what you think?"

"You don't believe her?" James asked. He had never doubted it for a second. He knew what he'd seen, after all. "Have you ever seen someone who's been Imperiused? I don't imagine Malcolm's telling you lot much about the Unforgivable Curses at your level, but…"

"No, I haven't," Scorpius snapped at James. "Why would you think I would?"

James grimaced uncomfortably. "I… I just sorta figured…"

"You figured, because I'm a Malfoy, I grew up knowing about every bit of Dark Magic known to man," Scorpius answered, sounding more weary than offended – like he got this sort of reaction all the time. "My father taught me a few spells before I came to Hogwarts, but nothing like that. He only taught me enough to defend myself."

"Defend yourself?" repeated James. "From what?"

Scorpius rolled his gray eyes; he _did_ seem offended now. "Come on. Don't be stupid. My father knew what I could be getting myself into. The Malfoy name's mud in wizard society – at best. Hell, _you_ tried to attack me two years ago."

James looked away guiltily.

"Anyway… no, I don't know what it looks like when someone's under the Imperius Curse," Scorpius deadpanned. "I've only ever heard of it. I've never cast it, never seen it being cast, don't know what it looks like. But I'll bet _you_ do, right? Son of the Head Auror and all?"

"I might have… skimmed a few of my dad's old books on the Dark Arts in my free time," James admitted.

"So you think she was Imperiused?" Scorpius asked. "How would you know? Did you see her that day?"

James frowned. "You could say that. What's more is—"

"Speak of the devil," Scorpius said ominously, and James whirled around in that direction. Standing several paces away, apparently oblivious to their presence, was a young witch, wand out and pointed down at her feet.

" _Ambulo Tacitum!"_ she whispered. Her shoes radiated a momentary, bright light, as the space around her shone and distorted. She then pulled a hood up over her head and ears and started to walk noiselessly in the other direction.

Besides James, Scorpius respired loudly and shook his head. " _No._ "

"Scorpius –"

But Scorpius had already drawn his wand and taken careful aim. " _Incarcerous."_

The end of Scorpius's wand spat forth a long but sturdy-looking twine rope into the corridor. The witch was hardly visible, but an audible yell of shock signaled that Scorpius's spell had hit its mark. Scorpius took off in a run down the hallway. James, swearing to himself, sprinted in an attempt to keep close enough to keep Scorpius from doing something (else) stupid.

" _Diffin—"_ the witch, flailing her free wand arm toward the region of her lower legs, tried to mutter.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Scorpius interrupted her incantation, just as James was arriving. "You botch that and you'll have stumps where your ankles used to be."

The girl, who had fallen onto her side with her lower legs bound together in twine, rolled to her back. Her body shook and her chest heaved in a sort of breathless laughter.

"Malfoy? Didn't see that coming," she said wearily. James wasn't sure if she was exhausted, exhilarated, or simply found the situation amusing. "I thought you'd be Corbin, for a moment. Where _is_ he, anyway? I'm always getting followed by someone or another."

"God, I can't imagine why," Scorpius droned mordantly.

"It's usually a Prefect or something," she answered, still sounding out of breath. "They sent first years once or twice, but I caught one in my room last month and sent her back with her legs bound together. _Locomotor Mortis_ is easier, by the way."

"Is this funny to you? Do I look like I'm in the mood for 'funny'?" Scorpius very nearly snarled. "What the hell do you want with Sylvia?"

"That? That wasn't anything," she answered.

"You tried to scorch her face with a fireball," Scorpius deadpanned. "Then you cracked two of her ribs."

"Two?" she repeated, letting out an exasperated sigh. "I must be out of practice."

Scorpius's lips tightened all the way across his face and he tried to take a deep breath. He took a couple of steps away from her – but then he whirled back around quickly, and wand-first. An ominous-looking golden light took over the tip. James didn't know what spell that sort of light signaled, but it didn't look friendly.

"Scorpius—" he uttered feebly.

"I'm only going to tell you this once, Lilith Cross." Scorpius's voice trembled. "I don't know what you're _trying_ to do, and I don't care. Stay – away – from – my – friends."

At this, Lilith chuckled. A strange smile crossed her face. "You're not going to. You wouldn't."

"Oh, really?" Scorpius inquired savagely. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You've worked too hard," Lilith answered. "And if it got out that you hexed a defenseless young girl… well, then you're exactly what everyone already thinks you are. I'm half-blood, by the way. Mum's a pureblood witch, Dad was Muggleborn."

"Why do you think I give a damn about how 'pure' your blood is?" Scorpius retorted, his voice a sandpaper snarl. Clearly, something Lilith said had touched a nerve.

"You don't," she replied knowingly. "But it's no fun being judged for something that had nothing to do with you, is it?"

Scorpius, after another tense few moments, lowered his wand… to Lilith's bound legs.

" _Diffindo_." He cast the spell with a very slow, careful motion, and the rope bonds began to come apart as if undone by a fine blade. Lilith sat up.

"No matter what you do, some people aren't ever going to see you as anything more than 'that bloke with the Death Eater family,'" she said. "Like me… all I'll ever be to some people is 'the girl that tried to set the Great Hall on fire.' We're not that different, really. Except…"

She stood to her feet and approached very close to Scorpius.

"You know exactly where it all comes from," she explained. "You know what your father and grandfather were. Everybody does. But who cursed me? Who are they? Why did they make me do what I did?"

Scorpius's face remained stoic. "You act like I'm supposed to know."

" _Someone_ has to," Lilith replied. "It's only been a couple of years. It's not like everyone's gone that was here before."

"They might be," James finally piped in. Lilith did a double take, seemingly almost having forgotten that James was standing there. "Do you know who Morris Beal is?"

"You mean my sister's old boyfriend?" Lilith said too casually. "He was a couple of years up, and I guess they fell apart after he graduated. No one's heard from him. He was an alright bloke, I guess. Better than my sister deserved. I liked him. He's… he's the one that stopped me when it happened…"

James stood in stunned silence.

"I wish he was here right now," she confessed, her voice taking on the tremulous quality of someone barely succeeding at keeping their composure. "He'd know what to do about all this."

James lost track of himself at that moment, his mundane actions consumed by a red haze of rage. The next thing he recalled doing was arriving at his dormitory and rattling the walls with how hard he slammed the door.

" _Bloody hell!"_ somebody yelped, jumping out of their bed. "What the—oh. What's wrong?"

James recognized the voice but largely ignored it. He pressed his forehead against the nearest wall gently in an effort to calm himself.

"James? James?" someone kept calling.

James could only murmur what he was thinking. "I'm gonna kill him."

" _James,_ " the voice repeated, this time more softly but more insistently, and he finally turned around. James's eyes, already brimming over without him having noticed, focused on the hard, blue eyes of his best friend. "Calm down and tell me what happened."

"It's worse than I thought," James finally said.

"What's worse?" asked Murphy. "What do you mean?"

"Lilith," James said. "She…"

"You ran into her?" Murphy asked. James nodded. Murphy frowned. "She doesn't remember anything, does she?"

"It's worse than that," James answered, kneading his forehead and face and slumping back against the wall. "She remembers it all wrong. Beal's some sort of hero to her. He Imperiused her to start the fire in the Great Hall, then screwed with her memory so she wouldn't know who did it. I'll bet he had something to do with her not coming back last year, either. And then… Brynne… oh, God…"

"Calm down," Murphy repeated. "Brynne's alright."

"How can you be sure about that?"

"Didn't you see her?" asked Murphy. "The first night, at the Sorting? Did she look alright to you?"

James didn't answer. He went silent for a long time, in fact, until finally—

"You need to see her," Murphy said very declaratively.

"But we can't—" James started, but Murphy was out of patience.

"To hell with what the rules are right now," he snapped. "You haven't been right since that night."

James tried to look at Murphy directly in the eye – but then he saw that scar again. That was his fault, too, he remembered…

Two _loud_ raps on the door of the dormitory made both boys jump.

THUMP. The door shook with the force of a hard impact once again.

" _We need everyone available in the Gryffindor common room NOW!"_ a voice shouted from the other side of the door.

Murphy raised an eyebrow. "The hell was that? Temple? That sounded like Temple's voice. Should we check it out?"

James said nothing – but then the door opened. A unicorn stepped across the threshold – or Martin Croyle, which was virtually the same thing.

"Something's happened," Croyle gasped. It sounded like he'd run quite a distance to get here. "I think we've really stepped in it."

"What's going on?" Murphy queried.

"I don't know details, but a Gryffindor's been attacked," Croyle replied. Murphy glanced at James, jaw a bit slack for a moment.

"Attacked?" he finally repeated.

"It sounds like what it sounds like," Croyle answered. "For what that's worth. You heard Temple – we've gotta get down to the common room. He didn't sound like he was asking."

And he whirled around and left again.

James's heart jumped into his throat. "Did he say who—"

"No," Murphy interrupted.

"Damn…" James whispered to himself in a mild panic, brushing past Murphy and out of the dormitory – but not before taking a moment to make sure he had his wand and knew exactly where it was.

 _Please not Albus or Hugo, anyone but them…_


	8. Chapter 8: The Schism Revival

Chapter 8: The Schism Revival

James descended the stairs to the common room at a mild sprint, only to find that many, many Gryffindors had already beaten him there. His eyes darted around the room. Isaac Pike was there, unsubtly armed with his wand, his free arm around his sister, Coraline, who was still in her Quidditch gear. Maylene Akers was there, in full Prefect robes and an expression of worry etched on her face. The portrait hole opened and a number of students poured in, including Tommy Jordan, who was followed not far behind by several of James's Weasley cousins. Roxanne and Dominique emerged first, and then, to James's shock and slight horror, a haggard-looking Hugo.

Somebody screamed Hugo's name and emerged from the crowd. Rose nearly suffocated her brother when she arrived and appeared to be sobbing into the neck of the younger boy's robes, despite the efforts of her older cousins and Tommy to get her to calm down. At last, a black-haired boy approached her from behind and put a hand on her shoulder. As Rose embraced him, he turned. James got a look at his face and nearly went weak-kneed with relief.

He went to try to make his way over to his family, but the crowd was too thick. If that weren't enough, someone moving very quickly cut in front of him and nearly knocked him down. James looked toward the offender to say something, but he was already headed for a table. He stepped up onto it, now towering several feet over the other students, his burly form covered by robes bearing the emblem of the Gryffindor Prefect.

"I'm going to say this once," Eamonn Temple snarled. His eyes were darting and his face flushed. "And some of you aren't going to like it, but this is where we are! Any thoughts you might have had of things going back to the way they were, any dreams you might have held of 'inter-house unity'… you might as well lay them all to rest. A line has been crossed – one we can't come back from. We're at war now. Not one we started, not one some of us wanted – but that's our reality."

"War? What are you talking about?

"What happened?"

"What's going on?"

James heard a peppering of questions from the throng of Gryffindors.

"War?" Murphy's voice came from somewhere very close to James. "Has he lost his effing mind? What the hell's he playing at…?"

Meanwhile, Temple was staring at the other Prefects that were closest to the portrait hole. Tommy seemed to be making a face expressing disapproval, but Temple was clearly not in the mood to be reasoned with.

"Go on, Jordan – tell them! Tell them what happened!"

Tommy Jordan had rarely had such a pained expression on his face. "Two of our Gryffindors," he said slowly, Temple staring a death laser through him the entire time, "two of our first years… were accosted in a sixth floor hallway. Hugo Weasley here… and Armon Addison."

An uproar came from the crowd of Gryffindors. James heard bits and pieces – and a lot of swearing.

"Everyone try to calm down," Tommy said, seemingly aware of its futility.

"Where's Addison now?"

"Is he alright?"

"He's in the hospital wing," Tommy said loudly. James was close enough to hear the conversation between Tommy Jordan and his fellow Prefect. "Temple, if you don't calm yourself—"

"I took this out of your hands a long time ago," Temple answered.

"What do you mean by—" but Temple would not let Tommy finish.

"Everyone shut it for a second, I've got something important to say about this!" he exclaimed. After several long seconds, people started to lower their voices. "Now, if we allow this, we'll allow anything. Our founder, Godric Gryffindor, helped the wizards of Wales overthrow their oppressive Muggle lords and establish their own societies. There are wizard settlements that exist in Wales even now because of what he did. He wasn't the type of man to 'allow anything.' And that's the spirit each and every one of us should have if the Sorting Hat – _his_ Sorting Hat – put us here!"

"We don't even have any proof that the Slytherins did this!" Tommy exclaimed.

"Don't be ridiculous!" The loud reply came from, of all people, Isaac Pike. He and Tommy roomed together and had been very close friends once, but grew apart when Tommy became a Prefect. "You think Ravenclaws would go after two of our first years for no good reason? I've been here seven years, Tommy, and I've never had an issue with a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff."

"Come to think of it, maybe this doesn't happen if Macmillan—" Tommy started.

"I had _nothing_ to do with that!" Pike shouted in interruption. "Trust me, if it had been me, I would have _found_ whoever hexed my sister and I _wouldn't_ have been as nice to them as that!"

"Everyone needs to calm down a notch." A new voice joined the conversation as Kenneth Bourne, James's former Quidditch teammate and a fifth-year Prefect, worked his way to the front of the throng. " _Everyone_. That means you too, Temple."

At this, Temple, who was considerably larger than Bourne even without the aid of a platform, leapt off the table upon which he had been standing, to approach his younger counterpart face-to-face. "I _am_ calm, Bourne. Trust me. You'd know it if I wasn't."

" _Stop it_ ," Tommy forced his way in between the two other boys. "I'll grant you it looks bad, but we need to have some sense about this…"

"Sense? That's your solution?" Temple's lip curled. "I see now why you didn't get that Head Boy badge."

"I didn't get the Head Boy badge because they didn't want the Head Boy and Girl from the same House," Tommy said calmly. "We've been over this already."

"And that doesn't bother you?" probed Temple. "That doesn't bother you _at all_ that Geoffrey Boyd of all people got that spot over you because some the Slytherins started whinging about some 'power imbalance' when that's _never_ been a problem before? Boyd's a joke. He'd be useless in an actual crisis. Everybody knows it. He can't even control his own House and they want to make him Head Boy because of some hurt feelings."

"Flitwick must have decided—" Tommy started. Temple scoffed.

"Flitwick. That senile, old codger doesn't hold a candle to Madam McGonagall. She wouldn't have stood for this rubbish, and you know it. We only really started having problems once Flitwick took over because he doesn't give enough of a damn about our House to make an example of a snake when it's needed. We'd be much better off with Wenster as Headmaster."

"Wenster won't ever be Headmaster," Tommy replied coldly.

"And why is that, Mr. Jordan?"

Temple smirked. Tommy didn't turn to look initially, but James noticed a good amount of the brown drain out of his face. Along with several others, James looked toward the portrait hole to see the tall, cold-eyed, old wizard standing at the entrance to the common room, straightbacked, wearing his usual robes of blood red.

"I apologize for my lateness," Wenster said, in a tone that betrayed that he really didn't care much if his Gryffindor charges were offended by his lateness. "I was just in a rather… animated dialogue, shall we say, with our esteemed Headmaster. It seems I've arrived just in time, though. So why is it, Mr. Jordan, that I would never be qualified to be Headmaster? Because I'm not popular enough among the students or their parents? Well, Flitwick was always popular as a Professor. We see how well that's gone."

"With all due respect," Tommy said, "your history as a Hardliner—"

"Was well over twenty years ago," Wenster interrupted. James's eyes widened as he glanced at Murphy and then back at Professor Wenster before turning back to Murphy.

"Like I said," Murphy muttered with a solemn nod. "Well, I never _said '_ Hardliner', but…"

Believe it or not, James had opened his History of Magic text a few times and glanced at the last few chapters. After all, when you're an eleven-year-old boy and you realize your dad may well be mentioned in the part of the book chronicling recent British wizarding history, you want to find his name and show your best mate. Harry Potter and his exploits were given some degree of attention, of course. One did not mention the decade of the 1990s and simply gloss over the Second Wizarding War, after all. It was a rather important event. 'Hardliner' was a term that came into vogue post-war for those (usually politicians and well-known figures) who favored more punitive treatment of the living Death Eaters and their associates.

In retrospect, James, who had been taking classes with Wenster for three years and knew about his history with Slytherin House, felt like an idiot for never having made that connection.

Wenster, with a grimace, conceded, "Still, you bring up a valid point. Slytherin would have been and would be handled much differently if the decision were mine. But popular opinion wants 'unity'… It's not a bad ideal, unity… but people that want friendship between the four Houses for the sake of Hogwarts forget this harsh reality. Sometimes you need to cut off a dangerous part so the whole can live. Ask Mr. Addison about that. He'll tell you – or he would if someone hadn't blinded him and put him in the hospital wing."

By this point, the common room was all but silent. Even outside of a classroom lecture context, Professor Wenster was a fearsome individual that few, if any, had the desire to cross.

"The Headmaster and I will have another conversation," Wenster said. "In the meantime, try not to make things worse for yourselves with poor decision-making. As the rules dictate, no walking Hogwarts alone. Also, older students, if you can spare the time, it would be of great service to House Gryffindor if you can see to the safety of your younger counterparts between classes."

"What will you do if the Headmaster doesn't listen?" asked Temple.

"Then we would have to call on… outside influences," Wenster replied. "As much as the thought of government bureaucracy sickens me, this cannot be allowed to continue."

"But the Ministry doesn't have any power over Hogwarts beyond—" Tommy piped in.

"I am ninety-one years old, Mr. Jordan," Wenster interrupted firmly. "I am well aware of the statutes governing the Ministry's influence over Hogwarts. All of them – even the most recent ones. But this is not simply a Hogwarts problem. It's a question of law and accountability, and of trust. That is why I took the stance I did after the war. And if given another chance, I would have done the same."

He raised his voice to address the common room as a whole.

"Gryffindors," he announced, "I will not sanction any sort of armed vengeance, especially given that we have not located the particular culprits. Rest assured, I will find Mr. Addison's attackers, and ensure they are dealt with harshly. I will also try to get our Headmaster to see sense. In the meantime, you have free reign from me as your Head of House to _defend yourselves_ from any assailants – using force, if necessary."

Finally, he turned to Temple and muttered, "Go on." And, his blood red robes swishing behind him, he departed.

"'I will not sanction any sort of armed vengeance,'" Murphy muttered. "But it's going to happen, and he knows damn well it's going to happen. He just wants his hands clean."

James sighed heavily, clenching his fists. "Damn it…"

"It's official, then!" Temple yelled suddenly. James winced in annoyance. _Shut it already, I'm trying to think…_ "I need a dozen good wizards – _or_ witches, doesn't matter – third year and older, skilled in Defence with a willingness to protect their fellow Gryffindors."

"Have you lost your bloody mind, Temple?" Kenneth Bourne spoke up. "Who gave you permission to start some sort of—"

"He just left – so if you've got a problem with it, catch up and tell him to his face," Temple replied.

"Professor Longbottom never would have agreed to this," Bourne answered.

"Professor Longbottom isn't here." Temple's voice was flat and curt. "Maybe he's not even coming back. We have to protect ourselves."

"This is ridiculous," said Tommy. "I would have preferred the Veil."

"No!" Bourne disagreed vehemently. "God, no. Not _that_ again."

"We don't have the Veil," Temple said. "This is what we've got to work with."

"Temple's right." Someone pushed to the front of the crowd. James didn't see him initially, but was looking at Tommy Jordan, whose eyes widened and face fell.

"You're mental. Pike… _Isaac_ , _please_ tell meyou're not doing this," he pleaded.

"You're an only child, Tommy," Isaac Pike said, his voice as solemn as James had ever heard it. There was an obvious regret in his eyes. "You wouldn't get it."

Isaac Pike, James learned, was actually (like James himself) the oldest of three. The baby of the family was ten-year-old Justin. He would be starting Hogwarts next fall.

"It was a _prank_ ," Tommy said. "Whoever did it, it was a prank. What difference is it—"

"Are you serious?" Pike queried. "First off, any pranks I pulled were so _everyone_ could have a laugh. I don't go out of my way to bully and intimidate people. Second – a pig's tail. A _bloody pig's tail,_ Tommy. There's so many implications I don't know where to start."

James glanced at Coraline, who now looked mortified, as if she would Disapparate on the spot if possible.

Temple raised both eyebrows for a moment. "There's one."

He looked in Kenneth Bourne's direction. Bourne shook his head. "Someone's gonna get hurt if you go through with this."

"Someone's gonna get hurt either way. We've already seen that." A boy a bit bigger than James emerged from the front. Bourne's jaw opened just a bit. "Better them than us."

James never saw much of Derrick Egan anymore. He, like Kenneth Bourne, was a fifth year. Also like Kenneth Bourne, he and James had played Quidditch together in the past.

"Two," announced Temple.

Silently, an older girl, brunette with a strong chin, approached the small group gathering around Temple.

"Wren Audrey?" Temple uttered, apparently a bit shocked. James tried to remember what year she was. He never saw her much. He would have known it if he had. She was a shade over six feet tall, not fat but certainly no delicate fairy. Even Temple, himself no small lad, regarded her with a hint of caution.

"I've never had the heart to ask before," she said – her voice was surprisingly soft and gentle for someone with such an imposing physical presence. "Is it true what they say about Addison? You're a Prefect, so you'd know…"

Temple's face was serious. "Which part?"

"About how sick he was before he came here," Wren replied. "I've heard things, but I didn't know if they were true or not…"

"It's every bit that bad," another voice interrupted Temple before he could speak. Irritation crept across the Prefect's face for a brief second, then surprise.

James craned his neck around a couple of people and found the speaker.

"Oh, great," James muttered to himself. "Just brilliant."

"Saw that coming," a voice murmured in reply, but it was devoid of the Irish accent James had become so accustomed to hearing from his best friend. Furthermore, it had not come from James's right, where he knew Murphy had been standing, but somewhere off to his left. James glanced in that direction and found a boy that had not been there even ten seconds ago. He was a bit shorter than James, bespectacled, with golden-brown hair and dark eyes that still managed to pierce. James vaguely recognized him.

"Rowan Lester?" James named him.

"I thought I'd get a look at this sideshow up close," Rowan explained as the other boy kept talking. "See what it is I'm dealing with."

"Dealing with?" James repeated, a bit confused. Rowan gave him a glance with an expression that was almost one of pity.

"I'm not sure if some of you lot know what that is – it's not as common for wizards, but you should look it up. Or ask Professor Burgess. She knows," the other speaker went on. "It's a hell of a disease. I can tell you that much."

A moment later, Stephan Vaisey finally came into view.

"It's like you've said, Temple," he went on, his eyes directed in a cold stare at the Gryffindor Prefect. "They crossed a line."

"You know, for what it's worth, Vaisey, I've never seen you say two words to Armon Addison," James's eyes widened. He recognized that voice. Vaisey did too – he rolled his eyes and turned to his right. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were just using this situation to get revenge."

"You shut your mouth!" Vaisey snapped. "You have no idea what it's like—"

"—to have a pair of bullying gits be the worst problem I have in the world?" the other boy interrupted. "I guess that makes the death threats my family got whenever we stepped outside look pretty tame."

"Malfoy, if you're only here to argue—" Temple started.

"I'm not here to argue," Scorpius said, staring at a seething Vaisey for several moments before looking up at Temple.

 **Brynne**

News of Armon Addison's plight had made the rounds around Hogwarts by dinner. There was a definite feeling of unease at the Slytherin table as a large part of the House sat for their evening meal in the Great Hall. This leaden feeling of disquiet was heavier once people started making note of the unusually low number of Gryffindors present in the Hall. In fact, the Gryffindor table, typically loud and full of activity for dinnertime, was all but abandoned. A handful of scattered Gryffindor groups ate at the table. Judging by the books, most of them had come from the library.

"Dominique and Roxanne are here," Lily Potter indicated, pointing out the two girls sitting together at the much-too-large, much-too-empty table on the other side of the room. One girl was tan-skinned and had black hair that curled and coiled every which way like a cloud. The other was fair and had hair of a very straight blonde. Both were part of the Weasley family, and cousins to James and Lily.

"So we've got, what, eight to ten out of a couple hundred?" Lena was sitting to Brynne's right. She was eating fruit for dinner – apparently, too heavy a meal in the evening made her sleepy, and she had extra studying to do. Lena brushed her black curls out of her green eyes. "Something's definitely off – don't you think, Kadric?"

The third year boy observed the Gryffindor table silently for a few moments. "Professor Wenster's not at the staff table, either. This is _weird_."

"Well… we don't make a habit of wandering the halls, so they can't pin anything on us," Lena remarked, glancing at Brynne.

"That's not what I'm worried about," admitted Brynne, kneading strands of her cinnamon-red between her finger and thumb. She allowed her eyes to drift down the Slytherin table. Bletchley was sitting there with Nott and Amara Zabini. Marsha Flint had earned herself a detention for something or other. Probably related to her marks, Brynne thought. Marsha had never been the brightest of bulbs...

Bletchley made some sort of comment. Amara Zabini bashed the table with her fist and started snarling at him. Nott sat just as passively as ever, and whatever he had said had somehow gotten Amara to calm down.

"You think it was them?" Kadric Howell's voice queried. Brynne cringed; that hadn't been her intention at all.

"Phillip…" she shook her head. "He's not the person I knew before, but… I never thought he'd stoop this low. I still don't. He distrusts the Gryffindors, but he's not the type that would attack a defenseless first year."

"Amara might be, though…" Lily pointed out.

But Brynne turned to the girl and smiled. "I doubt it. She's not competent enough with hexes, even though she likes to think she is. I think _you_ could beat her in a duel one-on-one if it came to it."

Lily dared to show a weak smile, but it promptly disappeared off her face.

"I hope Karyn's somewhere safe," she worried. "Or at least with Parveen."

"How's Parveen holding up?" Brynne asked. Seeing Lily's obvious look of surprise at having been asked such a question, she added, "Uh… I just meant… I know her family's split up all over the place…"

Parveen Rama, if Brynne remembered correctly, had a sister in Ravenclaw, and an older brother rooming with James in Gryffindor – not to mention her youngest sibling, who was still at home.

"She says she's alright," Lily said. "I think she's lying, though."

Lily looked down at the table, her expression very downcast.

"Something else wrong?"

Lily swallowed, as if hesitant to say anything.

"It's Ophelia," she finally admitted solemnly. "I notice that… well… her bed's right next to mine, and I hear her sometimes crying late at night."

Brynne frowned.

"Have you asked her what's wrong?" she queried.

Lily's curtain of ginger swayed back and forth as she shook her head. "She doesn't talk. Ever, hardly."

"…Maybe she's homesick?" Brynne suggested.

"Maybe so," Lily agreed. At that moment, a roar rang through the Great Doors and into the Hall for the whole of Hogwarts to hear.

"AMBROSE!"

"What the—?" Kadric Howell turned around on his seat to get a better look as much of the Hall went silent.

Purposeful and almost board-stiff in his gait, old Professor Wenster strode into the Great Hall, his blood red cloak billowing in his wake. Also in his wake were a group of students, Gryffindors to a man. At their head was a well-built young man with short, brown hair and a set jaw.

A gasp came from across the table from Brynne. She angled her head around Lena to see better. Two boys with light blond hair were walking side by side, yet eyeing each other distrustfully.

"What d'yeh think yeh're doin'?" a proud oak of a man grew out of the staff table at the head of the room. Even from this distance, Professor Hagrid seemed to tower over just about everything.

"I don't have any business with you, Rubeus," Wenster said, his tone surprisingly cordial. On the other side of the staff table sat Professor Ambrose, who had actually looked up from whatever book he was reading. "Ambrose, I'm going to ask you this once, nicely. _Are you hiding anything?"_

"This isn't called for," Ambrose said calmly, obviously in an attempt to defuse the situation. "I'm just as concerned about this as you are. Perhaps we can work together to come to some sort of—"

"Why should I do that? You're allowing an atmosphere of disorder that is endangering my students. Why should I work with you?" asked Wenster.

"So you can have some credibility for once," Ambrose said, finally pushing himself to his feet. "Coming from you, this looks like just another Slytherin witch hunt."

"Oh, no – believe me, the wizards are included, too," Wenster replied. "I'll interrogate your students' _owls_ if I have to. I mean to find out the _truth_ – we Gryffindors are actually concerned about those sorts of things."

"Enough," Ambrose snapped. "If you're interested in having this conversation like two civilized adult wizards, we can do that. But this is neither the time nor the place."

"Maybe you've had your nose too far in your books to notice, but we have a bit of a situation here," Wenster shot back. "One of my first year students is a victim of an attack from one of _your_ students and is in the hospital wing, unable to see. And there you sit, asking me for decorum. _Who do you think you are?_ "

"I am not twelve years old anymore, for one," Ambrose replied, in a tone colder than Brynne had ever heard him use. "I am a Professor of Hogwarts and a Head of one of Hogwarts' Four Houses."

"And a fine job you're doing at both of those, obviously," Wenster said at a near mutter. "Tell me, then, Professor Ambrose… how's your knowledge of wizard law?"

Ambrose remained silent, apparently having decided not to dignify Wenster's question with a response. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – Wenster answered himself:

"'Gross abuse or negligent endangerment of an underage charge.' That's ten years at a bare minimum, if memory serves. _Per count_."

"Lucan, are you barking?!" Hagrid roared, making half the Great Hall jump. "You couldn' possibly mean—"

"Only if he makes me," Wenster said. "Professor Ambrose, your House's student leadership will appear before the Disciplinary Panel to answer to questioning about the incident. If you attempt to obstruct or subvert said panel, I, as acting Head of Gryffindor House, have and will use the authority vested in me by the Headmaster to press criminal charges against you on behalf of Mr. Addison."

Naturally, muttering and gasps peppered the Great Hall. But Wenster did not break stride:

"Or, in layman's terms… you bring me your Prefects, or I'll bring you the Wizengamot and have you locked away until you're as old and as gray as I am."

There was a pause, as if Wenster wanted the full gravity of this statement to wash over everyone in the room. Then he shouted:

" _We're leaving! And take care not to turn your backs."_

For one horrible second, Brynne thought this was another threat. Then, by the way the few Gryffindor students Wenster had brought with them all backed out of the room, she realized it wasn't the Slytherins that Wenster was addressing.

The Gryffindors that remained at the Great Hall table sat with the rest of the hall in shocked silence – although a couple hastily gathered their things and bolted from the room, meals left half-eaten on the table.

"All of our Prefects," Kadric Howell breathed, turning back around to face Brynne. His face was as white as chalk. "God. What is he playing at?"

Brynne shook her head, completely at a loss. "Malcolm's people probably…"

"What?" queried Kadric.

"Nothing. It's not important right now," Brynne muttered hastily. _One thing at a time,_ she told herself.

"He said 'the Wizengamot'," commented Lily. "That's the Ministry's high court… but how? Can he do that?"

"I don't know," Brynne admitted. "I don't know if Professor Ambrose knows. He can't chance…"

"He's not going to turn our Prefects over to the Panel, is he?" Kadric asked, horrified. "One, it's not right. There's no way Wenster can prove they've done anything wrong. Two, they'll turn on him."

"I don't know that, either," Brynne disagreed. "If he thinks one of them had something to do with it…"

"He'd never live that down," Kadric argued, shaking his head. " _Never_. He might even lose his job over it. A lot of the Prefects' parents have jobs in the Ministry. How do you think they'll react if they think Ambrose is sacrificing their children to save his own arse? He loses either way. If he does what Wenster's asking, he's going to lose the respect of most of the House…"

"…If he doesn't, Wenster's going to try to have him arrested and he might lose his job anyway," Brynne finished.

A sharp intake of breath near all of them brought the tense conversation to an even tenser halt. Lena had been all but silent after Wenster's announcement, but now that everyone else was paying attention to her, they noticed her crying, her eyes hidden by her hair and hands. What Brynne could see of her face was a tearful, heartbreakingly pained grimace.

Brynne frowned. She knew what Lena had seen, and knew there was nothing she could do to make Lena unsee what she had seen. _One of Beal's memory tricks would actually be really useful right now,_ she thought bitterly. Meanwhile, Kadric sat next to Lena, looking uncomfortable.

"I'm sure there's some sort of reason," Brynne finally said, thinking she had done her best to be reassuring.

"He hates this House," Lena replied hopelessly. "And hates me for being here. What other reason is there?"

Brynne was sure she had some sort of answer, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she realized she knew nothing.

That had been happening a lot lately.

That evening after dinner, the common room was more crowded than Brynne had ever seen it in the middle of a term. The usual near-silence that permeated the emerald-tinged dungeon was replaced by tense murmurs and whispers. Forebodingly, Boyd and one of the Slytherin Prefects stood at the entrance, blocking the way in or out as if the door and password designed to do so could not be trusted. Perhaps, Brynne thought, they were waiting for Professor Ambrose or Professor Flitwick to show up to summon them for trial.

Wenster had never said the word 'trial', but that was essentially what he had meant.

Lena had disappeared to the dormitories at a trudge. Her latest heartbreak seemed to take the very life out of her. Kadric didn't deal well with crowds. That left Brynne and Lily, the latter of whom looked around the room intently.

"Lily, listen…" Brynne started to suggest at one point. "Maybe you should—"

"Don't treat me like a little kid," Lily interrupted, shooting Brynne a hard, blazing look, and that was the end of that conversation.

Brynne continued scanning the common room for signs of anything unusual. She could find nothing in particular – perhaps, she thought, because _everything_ was unusual at the moment. After a while, though, she caught sight of a hulking Slytherin approaching the dungeon entrance. Exactly why, she wasn't sure, but she knew it wasn't a good sign.

One of the Prefects must have sensed trouble as well, because he immediately opened his mouth. "Shelby—"

"Out of my way, Bellamy," Shelby Fletcher-Hawes said, his voice insistent but quavering dangerously.

"Where exactly do you think you're going?" Bellamy did not give any ground.

"Where do you think I'm going?" Hawes snapped. "I'm going to take care of this."

"Are you _serious_?" Bellamy asked.

"You going to 'take care of this' like Claudius did?" the female Prefect standing next to Bellamy queried. "That your plan?"

"Gilda—" Bellamy uttered in warning, his voice betraying a bit of fear.

"You really think he attacked Longbottom?" Hawes snapped in Gilda's direction.

"He gave the Professors a confession," Bellamy said patiently. "We've been over this."

"What do you think they threatened him with before he did it?" Hawes asked. "Why don't you get your head out of the Professors' arse and _think_ for a second? We know _at least_ one Professor that's had it out for Slytherins from the off. Why the hell he's still allowed to teach here, I have no idea. It wouldn't surprise me if _he_ magicked himself to look like Claudius and went after Longbottom, just to set off this whole mess!"

 _You've got the wrong person,_ Brynne thought silently, _but you're definitely on the right track._

"Your conspiracy theories aside—" Bellamy started, but Hawes interrupted with a loud scoff.

"This is exactly why I didn't bother coming back," he said, and Bellamy's face fell. "Claudius gets framed for a crime he didn't commit, you have nothing to say. Wenster marches into the Great Hall and threatens our entire house, you have nothing to say. And I bet when Ambrose comes down and sells you all out to save his own skin, you'll have _nothing_ to say. I may have to defer to you as a Prefect because the school says so, but I'm not playing for any team you captain. You can be sure of that."

"If you want to be like that, that's fine," Bellamy said. "I can live without bullies who fight little boys half their size."

"I was standing up for House Slytherin. _Somebody_ has to," Hawes defended himself. "But if you want me to fight someone closer to my own size…"

"Are you threatening me, Hawes?" Bellamy, who was a shade smaller than Hawes but still no tiny fellow, questioned.

But Hawes shook his head. "Not really. But it wouldn't be the first time I had to send a message to a coward—"

"You can't talk to him like that!" Gilda exclaimed, incensed. "Five points from—"

"To hell with your points," Hawes interrupted. "And to hell with _you_. Wouldn't even be a Prefect in the first place if it weren't for your father."

"Don't talk about my father," Gilda said, her cheeks turning red. "At least _my_ father was a proper father. And at least he wasn't a criminal."

This statement hung in the air for a moment. Bellamy's jaw was agape, as if he was appalled Gilda had actually _said_ that. If he truly disapproved, though, he wasn't vocal about it.

Hawes took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third. He shook his head and began to mutter to himself, " _No_. Eff it."

And he pulled out his wand. An uproar of horror filled the common room.

Then, as both Prefects went to their own wands, a jet of red light came out of the crowd.

Hawes was at a fair distance, yet the spell hit its mark, throwing the burly youth to his back and sending his wand flitting through the air several feet away.

"Stop!" Bellamy yelled. "Let us handle this."

"Handle what?" a boy emerged from the crowd. Bellamy's eyes narrowed a moment before the auburn hair and face of Phillip Bletchley came into view. "We don't have time for this! We're busy fighting amongst ourselves, but who else do we have?"

"Bletchley, this isn't your problem," Bellamy said. "Stay out of it."

"Not my problem?!" Bletchley queried. Pointing to the House insignia on his robes, he snapped, "Look at this emblem! Of course it's my—"

But at this point, Hawes had jumped to his feet, and made a move toward Bletchley. Bellamy jumped between the two.

"Are you really trying to get yourself expelled tonight?" he snapped.

"Bellamy, step aside. You're not listening and you're not helping," Bletchley said flatly.

"You can't tell a Prefect what to do," Bellamy tried to scold Bletchley.

"I'll walk, then," Bletchley countered. "Gallette, Miller, Kubo, Marsha Flint, all said they'd go with me. And you _still_ haven't found a Chaser to take Oberon's place, have you?"

Brynne could see just a bit of color drain out of James Bellamy's face. He'd been shoved into the role of Quidditch Captain this year in addition to being a Prefect. Oberon Kent, who would have been a seventh year and the Slytherin Captain, dropped out of Hogwarts suddenly. Rumor had it that it had something to do with the Claudius incident. The two had been roommates since first year and Kent, from what Brynne had heard, had been very upset about the way the whole thing was handled. Add to this the fact that Wilmerlin Gettis had graduated and gone professional, and Bletchley was, in all likelihood, their best player.

"Kubo always said he was worried about Gryffindors trying to pick off the Slytherin team in the halls," Lily, who was a first year along with Masanori Kubo and took all of her classes with him, remarked at a whisper.

This was a power move by Bletchley and everyone in the common room knew it. _But why?_ Brynne thought. _What's he playing at?_

In this context, she mused, it could hardly be anything good.

 **Albus**

Albus glanced around the common room, which was still extremely active. A few Gryffindors had either gone to the library (in groups of two or three, of course) or had not returned from there. A few had dared to go to the Great Hall and weren't back yet…

"So are we supposed to not eat?" Sylvia queried.

"Please don't," Rose almost cut across her. Her mouth was set in a firm line and her normally pale ears were a brilliant shade of pink. She was sitting on the couch, hand tightly grasped around the wrist of her younger brother, Hugo, who might have been embarrassed if he weren't still in a state of shock.

The way Hugo Weasley had described it, they were on their way back from a walk around the grounds with Armon Addison – those were still allowed, provided you were in groups with students from your own House. He'd been showing Armon some of the spots Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione had told him about from their days here. Armon was Muggleborn, after all, and six weeks around the castle wasn't nearly enough for even a pureblood wizard child to be familiar with it.

Hugo had befriended Armon in the last few weeks – as had most of Gryffindor House, really. Armon was a subject of pity for his story, which took about as long as the train ride up to Hogwarts to become almost common knowledge.

But when figures emerged from the shadows of the castle halls, Hugo went to run, and in a moment of panic, left Armon behind.

"I'm a bloody coward, aren't I?" Hugo whimpered.

"No, you're not," Rose attempted to reassure him.

"Yes, I _am_. I'm a coward," he replied tearfully, finally yanking his arm away from Rose. "Mum and Dad would have stayed behind and fought."

"With what?" Rose asked. "What spells do you know?"

"I know _some_ ," Hugo said. "Better than Armon, anyway, he's barely had his wand two months…"

Albus was barely tuning into Hugo and Rose's conversation. It might've sounded awful, but Armon was the last thing on Albus's mind. He was mulling the last two years or so, trying to figure out if there had been any signs…

Of course there had been signs. He had just chosen to ignore them.

 _I should have said something. Should have talked him out of it._

Sylvia hadn't said much of anything this whole time, which wasn't like her. Albus glanced at her, sitting with her feet up in the chair across the fireplace, staring at Rose and Hugo with what almost resembled envy. She'd wanted a younger sibling. Albus had heard her mention it once.

Something hot ran through Albus, hotter than the hearth near which he sat. It took a moment for him to realize it was rage, and another moment to realize that the rage wasn't meant for Sylvia at all.

She glanced at him, her tan skin golden in the flickering firelight. As soon as he caught a glimpse of her irises, he tore his eyes away, staring at the clenched fists in his knees.

 _I should have said something. And I didn't. Again. James would have—_

Albus glanced up and around himself at the common room.

 _Where did James go?_

"You alright?"

Albus looked in the direction of the voice.

"You alright?" Sylvia repeated. "You look jumpy."

Albus was good at lying. At least, he was good at lying in response to that question. But too much was going on. His mind was all over the place.

"No," he finally said, turning his head away in shame.

There was a noise to his left, and the shadows shifted – but a distant, guttural rumble turned Albus's attention to a faraway spot in front of him, over the couch containing Rose and Hugo and across the common room. The portrait hole was opening. Through it first was Eamonn Temple, contorting so his rather stocky build would fit. Second was the vast but quiet sixth year girl, Wren Audrey. Next, with a leap, was Vaisey, wearing a smile that, given the context, could not possibly have signaled anything good.

Finally, he came through.

Albus stood, blood pounding in his ears. A momentary sensation of being crowded darted across his brain as someone was close to him. But he would not be deterred. Not this time. He walked across the common room, his strides long and purposeful. He was on his target before either of them truly realized it.

Something flickered in the gray eyes of Scorpius Malfoy – perhaps a realization of Albus's abnormal demeanor – but it was not soon enough for Scorpius to react when Albus put his forearm directly into his chest and drove him into the nearest wall, pinning him there with a dull _thump._

"Potter?! What's—" Temple's voice sounded somewhere behind Albus. He completely ignored it, and Scorpius cut the Prefect off anyway.

"It's fine. I've got this," he asserted. There was no tension from his body – he was not attempting to resist. Then, lowering his voice to a snarl, he questioned, "Albus, what the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"I was gonna ask you the same thing," Albus whispered. "What are you trying to prove?"

"I shouldn't have to prove anything to you," Scorpius answered, with a surprising lack of malice.

"Except that you haven't _gone completely barking mad_ ," Albus snapped. "Or did you forget that my sister's down there? Is that the plan? You gonna pick off a couple of Slytherin first years like they did Armon Addison, to prove how much of a Gryffindor you are?! That's how far you're willing to go, is it?!"

"I'm willing to do things you won't, yeah," Scorpius admitted. "I'm willing to do good even if it looks bad."

"Albus," Rose appeared from nowhere and gripped onto Albus's right arm, which had been reaching for his wand. He let Scorpius go.

"That's not an explanation," he still argued. "Why are you joining this gang?"

"It's Godric's Guard," Scorpius quickly countered.

"He's protecting Gryffindor House and its students," Rose said.

Albus was having none of it. "C'mon, Rose, you're clever, you know that's not what it's for…"

"Maybe not," Rose agreed, "but you can't say they've gone too far when they haven't done anything."

Albus turned his head to Rose, whose mouth was set in a firm line.

"They attacked Hugo," she said, her face flushed with a calm, repressed fury. "They attacked my brother. If a couple more Slytherins get strung up on the castle towers, I'm not sure I care much."

"Rose," Albus started to plead – but then Rose drew her wand and pointed it right at Scorpius.

"Still, though," she added, her voice shaky but unsettlingly serene, "If something happened to Lily because of you lot…"

"Someone's gonna have to make sure that it doesn't, then," Scorpius said, glancing significantly at Rose for a moment.

Then he looked at Albus, and his eyes hardened.

"Of course, it's not gonna be me," Scorpius declared, and suddenly Albus could hear a bitterness in his voice. "Because I'm a Malfoy. We just do evil and make life hell for Potters and Weasleys, right? That's what we are."

Albus felt like someone had punched him in the chest for a moment, but as Scorpius ambled around him, he was able to blurt out one sentence.

"I thought we were friends."

Still facing the wall where Scorpius had been, Albus didn't see any sort of physical reaction from the other boy. A few seconds later, though, he did hear his reply:

"I thought you were different."

Albus finally rounded, his jaw agape in shock. He caught a glimpse of the other boy's grey eyes, shining a bit behind an expression of disgust –

Scorpius turned away.

"Scorpius—" Rose called after him after he had gone a few steps. He didn't so much as break stride as he started toward the stairs up to the dormitories. These were quite crowded at the moment. To Albus' shock, the first two people Scorpius encountered on the way up were James and Richard Murphy. Albus wondered where they had gotten off to. James and Scorpius seemed to exchange words, but nothing went far beyond that, as Scorpius passed them and another boy as he ascended the stairs. James and Murphy reached the foot of the staircase and started to cross the room, and the last boy Scorpius had passed quickened stride to catch up with them. Albus hadn't believed his eyes initially, but as his brother and the other boys grew closer, he knew all the faces.

Why was Rowan, of all people, hanging around with James and Murphy? What did he have in common with them? Rowan had few close friends other than a second year girl he had grown up nearby (neither of them knowing about their wizard status until they got their Hogwarts letters for the first time). Nowadays, though, Albus didn't see the two together much. He always seemed busy with something or other, writing a letter or studying a book. He was a bit like Rose in that sense – although perhaps not so actively antisocial.

Albus decided to find out the answer for himself. He walked into their path, which seemed to be headed toward the exit.

"Alright there, Albus?" It was not James who spoke first, but Murphy. Albus never quite felt comfortable around Murphy, although he had been James's closest friend since their first year together. Their fathers knew each other from 'the war', although Murphy's dad wasn't a school friend. He was a few years older, already near the end of his time at Hogwarts by the time Albus and James's parents were coming in. "You look like you've lost your best mate."

Albus sighed heavily, resisting a sudden, troubling urge to punch Murphy in the jaw. Deep down, Albus knew the bloke didn't mean any harm. He never did. It was just that he'd never seen Richard Murphy take a thing seriously. And this – all of this – was deadly serious. _How can he stand there so calm like our whole bloody school's not falling apart? Even James looks like he knows there's something wrong._

Albus opened his mouth, and when nothing came out, it occurred to him that he'd walked over here to say something without actually thinking much about what he was going to say when he arrived.

"Cat got your tongue?" Murphy teased. James finally spoke up.

"C'mon, Murph, it doesn't look like he's in the mood," he said. "Love to stay and chat, Al, but we've got somewhere to be."

"It's almost half past seven," Albus finally spoke. "Where are you going?"

"Library," this time it was Rowan who spoke.

"Library closes at eight," Albus remarked. "It's at least twenty minutes' walk if you don't run into any ghosts or trick staircases."

"It's eighteen minutes – sixteen if you can get past the staircases quickly. I know. I've timed it," Rowan said. "We shouldn't need that much time to check a book out. But now it _is_ half past seven, so we've really got to go."

James grimaced. "Sorry, Al. I'll explain later."

And the three boys walked around Albus like he was little more than a column or some other obstacle to be evaded – although James did touch his shoulder on the way by.

Albus tried to think about what James and Murphy could have wanted with Rowan Lester. It didn't make sense, frankly. He'd never seen them associate at all until today, and they had all been going to Hogwarts together for over two years now. Rowan, like Albus, was a year below James and Murphy, so they couldn't have the same classes. For that matter, once students reached third year and started taking electives, you'd often find roommates with different schedules depending on what electives they took. Albus wasn't sure James and _Murphy_ had the exact same classes.

Maybe James was helping Rowan in a class? Maybe Defence? ( _That would explain a lot,_ Albus thought) Maybe _Rowan_ was helping _James_ in a class? James wasn't _thick_ , per se; he was decently clever. But there were some classes he wasn't great at. Like History of Magic, which Rowan Lester happened to be _very_ good at. Albus wouldn't have been surprised if Rowan's grasp on Magical History outstripped some O.W.L.-level students. He seemed to be genuinely interested in the material.

Albus shut his eyes tight, kneading the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache from all this thinking. He wanted to go up to bed. But he would wait. Maybe an hour, until he was sure Scorpius had calmed down. He didn't want to catch a hex to the face as soon as he crossed the threshold…

"What was that?" Albus managed not to jump, but he looked up very quickly, not realizing that there was someone standing in front of him. "With Scorpius. What's going on?"

It was Sylvia, and she looked concerned.

"A misunderstanding," he replied, swallowing hard. "My fault."

Sylvia frowned. "Is it really?"

"Why would you ask that?" Albus protested.

"You apologize for plenty of things that aren't your fault," Sylvia said matter-of-factly. "You going to apologize for all of this, too?"

Albus clenched his fists.

"My sister's down there," he said blankly after a moment. "How can I think she won't get caught up in all this? I can't."

"I know. So what do we do about it?" Sylvia challenged.

"'We'?" Albus repeated, the impact of that word finally hitting him after a while.

"Don't be an arse, Albus," Sylvia said flatly. "I'm helping."

Albus looked down at his shoes. Everything was too awful. The smile he had inside couldn't quite reach his face, but he felt it in there – and that made some bit of difference.


	9. Chapter 9: The Awakened

Chapter 9: The Awakened

Thursday did not begin well.

If there was any doubt – any at all – that Albus Potter had severely and perhaps irreparably damaged his friendship with Scorpius Malfoy, it was erased when Albus tried to greet him first thing that morning.

Scorpius's curt response as he left the dormitory (trailing right behind Stephan Vaisey of all people) was, "Go to hell."

"What's his issue?" queried McLaggen as if he had been personally insulted. Albus was about to answer for once, but McLaggen shook his head. "Y'know what? Don't bother. We'll be here all day."

Shaking his head, he went back to making sure he had all of his things. Defence was today, among other things. Albus wondered what mark he had gotten on his practical. Not awful, he imagined – although maybe Malcolm docked him a few points for lack of creativity. Jacob Bower from Hufflepuff had something elaborate prepared. It probably wouldn't have been comfortable for Albus had Bower been able to finish the incantation… but he was much, _much_ too slow. Albus had time to cast a Disarming Charm and pluck the wand from Bower's hand. Great in an actual practical situation, Albus thought. Only, Professor Malcolm was implicitly discouraging the use of Disarming Charms this year. They could apparently be countered by a skilled enough wizard – although Albus was yet to see it happen. The cynical part of him wondered whether Professor Malcolm disliked the Disarming Charm because it didn't carry quite enough chance of injuring its target.

Speaking of injured targets, Albus wondered whether Sylvia was alright. Lilith Cross had hit her with a Modified Knockback Jinx during the practical and cracked a couple of her ribs. Healing the actual bones was no problem for Madam Pomfrey, who had seen far worse injuries in her half century or so of work as Hogwarts matron. That said, there were lots of things besides bones that took damage when someone was hit hard enough to actually crack one. She hadn't been allowed to fly with her teammates for practice yesterday, and hadn't been happy about it.

Of course, Albus only remembered most of this late that night, lying awake in his dorm after the two had gone separate ways. It didn't do much to help his feeling like an arse and an awful friend.

"Looks like we're the only two left," McLaggen stated the obvious. Rowan, as usual, had been first to wake, and was gone long before anyone else. Scorpius had left with Vaisey. "Maybe we should stick together."

Albus almost wanted to reject him outright. McLaggen wasn't a _bad_ bloke, but Albus still didn't completely trust him. That, and he just wanted to be alone, in all honesty. But the rules wouldn't allow that, and only Merlin knew what waited for the Gryffindors outside the tower after yesterday. It wasn't a good idea from any angle.

"Yeah," he therefore said half-heartedly.

So the two left together. Toward the foot of the stairs they caught sight of the back of a very familiar head.

"Oi! Nine! You're in the way," McLaggen called.

The girl turned around, caught sight of McLaggen, and rolled her eyes before slinking aside to let him through.

"How's your ribs?" he asked when he reached her, and suddenly, Albus hated him again.

"I'm alright," Sylvia replied, her eyes giving McLaggen a distrustful once-over.

"Good. You should be able to go tomorrow, right? Yesterday was a disaster," he remarked.

"Not my call," she reminded him. "Madam Pomfrey's the one who's got to clear me. You know how she is…"

"Good point," McLaggen sighed. Then, letting out a groan, he muttered, "God, I can't wait for this weekend…"

And he went on ahead. When he did that, Sylvia's posture noticeably slackened. She leaned against the wall, and her hand went to her midriff.

"You're alright?" Albus queried. Sylvia, somehow, hadn't noticed he was there, and immediately straightened when she heard his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said much too quickly. Then, averting her eyes, she muttered, "Just a bit sore."

Albus descended the few last steps to level with her, and tried to put on what was meant to be a disbelieving expression.

"Really?" Albus queried again. Sylvia scowled sourly in an attempt to hide a grimace of pain. She failed, clutching at her side again.

"Okay, a lot sore," she murmured.

Albus frowned. "Maybe there's a potion Madam Pomfrey can give you for the pain?"

"I'd rather not," she deadpanned. "It's already going to be a few days as is. If I go up there now, she won't clear me to start practicing again _ever_. I'll be alright. I just need some time."

"You sound tired," Albus remarked, noting the weakness in her tone.

"I didn't sleep well last night," Sylvia confessed with a sigh. "Hard to find a comfortable position when you're basically one great effing bruise. Plus, Rose cried the whole night."

Albus's heart sank. He figured she might not take the whole fallout with Scorpius well, but…

He glanced up the staircase.

"Where is she?" he asked.

Sylvia sighed. "I don't think she's coming."

Albus's jaw slackened for a moment. "What do you mean, she's not coming? We've got class."

Rose had missed a couple of days of class last year, mainly when she was sick. (Albus was fortunate; various bugs and ailments that tended to circulate around the castle, particularly during the early fall weather change, tended to miss him.) He had never know her to simply skive off, though.

Sylvia frowned. "She's going through a lot. She's even worse at acting than you are."

Albus glanced at Sylvia. Not that Sylvia was lying – she definitely wasn't – but this was unusually astute for her.

"What?" Sylvia squawked defensively. "You sleep in the same room with someone for two years, you start learning stuff about them."

She averted her eyes from Albus again.

"We should probably go before it gets too late and we miss breakfast," she suggested.

"R-right," Albus agreed with a bit of a stammer. "Are you sure you're alright to walk?"

Sylvia rolled her eyes. It looked almost like a reflex. "Honestly, Albus. I've been walking since it happened and I haven't keeled over." Then a smirk crossed her face. "You can carry me all the way down, though, if it'll make you feel better."

A hot blush instantly rose on Albus's nose. "You sure about that?"

"Are you saying I'm heavy?" Sylvia ducked into Albus's view a step or two below him.

"No, I'm—" Albus frowned and looked away from her.

"Hey," a voice came from atop the stairs. Albus turned around. "Clear the staircase."

It wasn't Albus fault, he thought as he shifted to a side and allowed Eamonn Temple to pass, that Temple needed so much space. Sylvia glared mutinously at the Prefect's back for a moment, then raised her arm and began to do something with her fingers—

Temple turned around. Quickly, Sylvia stowed her hand behind her back.

"Thomas," he said. "Offer still stands, by the way, once you're well enough."

"Tell it to pull up a chair, then," Sylvia answered. "You're wasting your breath."

Temple stared at Sylvia and Albus for a long moment. Then, sighing, he turned around again and finally walked away. Sylvia's nose wrinkled in a way that was almost – _almost –_ unattractive. She muttered, just loud enough for Albus to hear it:

"Ass."

Breakfast was quick; they'd spent so much time dawdling that they hadn't left themselves much to eat before it was time to walk briskly to the tower where Professor Malcolm held Defence lectures. Even so, they were among the first Gryffindor third years to arrive – which was a good thing, because Malcolm already looked out of sorts. Albus thought at first that Malcolm was annoyed by something, but when the professor came closer, Albus realized that the face he was making wasn't one of annoyance. After all, Malcolm always seemed annoyed by something or other, so Albus had seen that face his fair share of times. This was different. It was a bit hard to see from this distance, and even harder because of the thin-rimmed windows in front of his eyes reflecting light off the top of the tower, but a bit of skin had gathered under his spectacles in telltale pouches. Malcolm's posture wasn't quite as straight as it normally was.

"Hey, Sylvia," Albus murmured.

"Yeah?" she'd been reaching into her bag, but stopped what she was doing immediately to answer.

"Does Professor Malcolm look… tired to you?"

Sylvia squinted – even leaned forward over her desk. "A little bit. Maybe he had a long night yesterday?" A smirk crossed her face as she theorized aloud.

"Everyone kind of had a long night yesterday, I'd bet," Albus said sadly.

"Probably not the same kind he did, though," Sylvia said, the smirk now full on her face for about two seconds. Albus was still trying to figure out what was so funny when the grin slid off her face like melting candle wax. She swore and then muttered, "Did he see me from all the way over there?"

"What?" Albus intoned flatly, his head swiveling around. With a jolt, he found Professor Malcolm not only nearby, but striding down the row of desks in front of them. When he reached them, Albus tried hard not to meet his eye. Malcolm was considerably taller than Albus's own father, and even a row down, towered menacingly in his black robes over Albus and Sylvia's sitting forms. Albus dared to glimpse him in the long, awkward silence. Now that he was close up, Albus could see that Malcolm didn't look tired – he looked _exhausted._ Albus wondered (silently, of course) whether the professor had slept at all last night.

"Miss Thomas," Malcolm addressed Sylvia in a low, slow voice. "I trust your injuries are healing well?"

"Well enough," Sylvia replied, the confusion and suspicion at Malcolm's sudden concern showing in the curves of her eyebrows. Her eyes did a quick dart in Albus's direction.

Desmond McLaggen appeared a moment later and walked toward the seat to Albus's right, which normally wouldn't have done much for Albus's nerves, but it diverted Malcolm's attention.

"Mr. McLaggen," he said quickly. McLaggen was a bit startled – Malcolm never spoke to him much, if at all. "I shouldn't get too comfortable."

McLaggen tilted his head. "What's going on?"

Malcolm's mouth contorted. Then he let out a resigned sigh. "I suppose I should wait until class has properly started to tell everyone."

"We've got assigned seats now?" asked McLaggen, and if there was ever a particular tone of voice that _sounded_ like eye-rolling, he was using it. Albus saw Sylvia visibly wince on his left. He knew what she was thinking. McLaggen had already lost Gryffindor a handful of points a couple of days ago. Add to that the fact that Malcolm, as a general rule, didn't like Gryffindors, and you had yourself a recipe for something awful happening right… about… _now._

But it never did. Malcolm stared at McLaggen for several moments. Albus saw the man's jaw tighten. Then, he said, "Yes and no."

And he walked away. Even McLaggen seemed to register how strange this was; his facial expression changed from mild confusion to utter bewilderment.

"What just happened?" he asked, not addressing anyone in particular.

"You got lucky," Sylvia suddenly piped up. "Now, can you find another row before he comes _back_ over here and decides to put our whole year in detention?"

McLaggen frowned and seemed to consider challenging both Sylvia and Malcolm just to see what would happen. He thought better of it, though, and (with an extremely long, grandiose sigh) left Albus and Sylvia by themselves on the row, choosing the one below it, which was still empty. Now that he had a view of most of the room, Albus could see that most of the third years from both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were already here. The Mack triplets were just arriving – together as always. Malcolm saw them and appeared to want to make a move in their direction but hesitated.

A group of three Gryffindors arrived; two girls – Nina and Liz, Sylvia's gossipy roommates – were followed quickly by two boys.

It took a second for Albus to recognize Stephan Vaisey. He'd had long hair past his shoulders when they had met at their Sorting, which seemed forever ago now. Then, after 'the incident', he'd cut it shorter. But it had grown back a bit in the months since, and certainly had never been _this_ short. Where flowing locks had been two years back, now there was a stubbly, well-trimmed buzz that made Vaisey look a few years older.

Scorpius's hair, however, was the same as it had been when the year started – silver-blond around his ears and neck, with a bit of turn to its longest strands. He separated himself from the group as if he couldn't wait to be rid of at least one of them. He and Albus met eyes for a moment as he came up the stairs. Sylvia called for him.

Scorpius ignored them both and sat a row up, a considerable distance away from everyone else in the room.

Speaking of loners, Lilith Cross walked in next, looking around the room as if for someone, then made her way to the side where the Hufflepuffs normally sat. She also sat by herself. Others filed in – Rowan, Bower from Hufflepuff, another Hufflepuff boy and girl whose names Albus didn't remember…

"So, before we start the lesson…" It was the softest, least authoritative announcement that a lesson was beginning that Albus had ever seen Malcolm perform. Despite that – or maybe because of it – it got everyone's attention almost instantly. Albus's heart sank horribly. Rose wasn't coming. Malcolm was standing in the middle of the room, having paused mid-sentence. He stared vaguely at the entrance. "Miss Weasley."

"Professor," a small voice preceded a head of bushy, auburn hair into the classroom. Albus's stomach did a feeble lurch; she had shown up, but she did not look or sound well. And now, Malcolm was going to have the chance to punish her publicly.

"You're late," the professor said curtly.

"I know," Rose replied. There was a disquieting 'do whatever you want to me, I don't really care at the moment' tone in her answer.

Malcolm paused. Albus waited for the proverbial gavel to drop…

"I heard about your brother," he said. "How is he?"

Albus was a bit surprised. So was Sylvia.

"What's he playing at…?" she muttered suspiciously.

"Fine. Safe in class, as far as I know," Rose answered shakily. Albus's mild shock morphed into anger. Was this Malcolm's idea of a punishment – to push Rose's sore points in front of the entire class?

 _Just take the points from her and be done with it_ , he thought to himself.

There was another awkward silence, during which Rose dared to try to move toward one of the many open seats.

" _Don't_ sit down," Malcolm said softly, but sharply. Now Albus's fists were clenching under the table. "Not yet."

So Rose, either out of obedience or because she didn't have any energy to spend on resisting, stood there without a word.

"I _almost…_ almost said, 'before we start the lesson,'" Malcolm recounted. "That was… inaccurate. Disrespectful, even. This _is_ the lesson – and I want all of you to listen to me with every bit of attention you can muster up."

Predictably, the classroom was almost eerily quiet – so quiet that when Nina Edgerton, sitting in the row below them, pierced the silence with a cough, Albus was fully convinced Professor Malcolm's wrath was about to come down on her in all of its full, terrifying glory.

But it never did.

"I need to make something very clear," he said. "And it's that I don't approve of what's going on right now. I wish I could say it's something I've never seen before. But I would be lying. I know what this looks like. I know exactly what this looks like. I've seen how far it can go, and the tragedy that can result if it's left unchecked."

More silence.

"I was a student here once, like all of you. And I had the… fortune, I guess you'd call it… to arrive at Hogwarts at a very unique time in its history," he went on. He paused again, closing his eyes. "I turned eleven the year Voldemort took over the Ministry. At the time, though, I didn't know about Voldemort, the Ministry, or even that magic was real. And I went on not knowing, because that was the year that Muggle-borns were not allowed into Hogwarts. I would only find out about everything – about myself, about magic, about Hogwarts – the following summer, after the war had ended. Thus I found myself, a newcomer to a world I knew nothing about, seated in a train compartment with children I had never met. As fate would have it, I ended up in a compartment with two other first years. We became friends on the train, but when we were Sorted, we all ended up in different Houses. One Ravenclaw, one Gryffindor—"

He paused for a moment, glancing at the Gryffindor side of the room.

"—And myself, in Hufflepuff."

Albus, who had a fairly good memory, figured out who these people were without Malcolm naming them. One was Professor Gladstone, and the third…

Albus looked over his shoulder, at Rowan, who was watching Professor Malcolm intently.

The third, Albus thought, had to be Rowan's uncle and godfather, Flynn Lester. If the little he'd heard of and about Flynn was to be believed, he had been old school friends with Malcolm, and a bit more than old school friends with Professor Gladstone. They all seemed to be around the same age as well, so it made sense.

"Even back then, we wanted more than anything to see Hogwarts come together," Malcolm claimed. "Some weren't so welcoming of that idea. It was a sensitive time back then. So we decided to do it ourselves. Maybe, we thought, if we studied hard and became Professors one day, we could have the power to change Hogwarts for the better – and, in so doing, change Britain for the better. There was a point that I thought we were doing a good job, but… the last several months have shown me how far we still have to go."

Another pause.

"I'm going to tell you a secret," Malcolm said, "one that your parents likely won't tell you – one that our Ministry _certainly_ would never admit. We, and by that I mean Britain, have spent a long part of history – too long – as a punchline for other wizarding communities around the world. Until recently, it was difficult to rise high in wizarding society here in Britain unless you were a certain 'blood status'. We have a 'Dark Lord' or some other destructive extremist every other generation, it seems. We spend time and blood making war with each other – let alone any threats from outside our world. The infighting and the bullheaded adherence to traditions from past generations have drained our numbers and cost us valuable progress. _Why do I tell you all of this?_ "

Malcolm had become more animated, and now he stood on the stairs in the middle at the divide between the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, glancing at each.

" _Why do I tell you all of this?"_ he repeated the question. "Because it's necessary that each and every one of you remembers that your peers are just that. If you look across this aisle at someone who has done you no wrong, and see either one of you as inferior – you are standing in the way of our progress. And those who hold on too tightly to history often disappear within its pages."

He descended to his original place.

"That'll be all for today," he finally announced.

"Seriously?" Albus heard Sylvia murmur next to him. "That's it?"

No one moved.

"You're _dismissed_ , in case you're unsure," Malcolm said. Slowly, students began standing and gathering their things, everyone glancing at each other quizzically. "We'll be starting minor dark creatures for our next lesson. _Do not_ show up on Tuesday not having read anything. You may regret it."

"What the hell was the use of that speech?" Sylvia asked. "Did he not come up with a lesson plan or something?"

"I doubt that," Albus replied. He and Sylvia ended up being among the last to leave, and when they finally got to the door…

"Mr. Potter."

Albus froze. His arms and hands tingled for a moment.

"Off with you, Miss Thomas. This is between us," Malcolm added loudly. Albus glanced at Sylvia, who rolled her eyes.

"I'll see you later, then," she muttered. She began to separate from him but some mad compulsion convinced Albus to reach out and grab hold of her arm. She let out a gasp and whirled her head around.

"Don't," he murmured, not meeting her eye. "I mean… you shouldn't go back alone. I'll catch up."

Sylvia said nothing, smiled, and walked away. Albus sighed.

"Mr. Potter," Malcolm repeated.

Albus finally turned to address him. "Yes, Professor?"

Malcolm paused for a moment – perhaps for effect, perhaps to gather his thoughts. "Tell me," he implored the young Gryffindor boy. "You're not a thoroughly untalented wizard; I can tell by your spellwork. Your marks are fair, all of your other professors speak well of you. I've never seen someone with your talent and, frankly, your pedigree, seem so ashamed to be a wizard. To be completely honest, it bothers me a bit."

Albus swallowed hard. He'd figured this would have something to do with the practical.

"That's…" he stammered. "Ashamed? What do you mean?"

"It's almost as if you fear who you would offend if you showed your true talents," Malcolm said. "Your brother, your sister, now that I've met her… they have no such problem. You're the odd one."

Albus looked at his shoes. He didn't need reminding of that. He already knew he was the most average of his siblings.

"Your Disarming Charm on Mr. Bower on Tuesday…" Malcolm commented. "I've seen fully-grown Aurors that can't cast the charm that well in a fight. Still, it was only a Disarming Charm. I get the impression, though, that you could master any type of magic, including combat magic, that you really wanted. So why don't you? Why are you holding yourself back?"

Albus grimaced. "I don't like hurting people. I don't like seeing people get hurt."

Malcolm nodded. "Thought that was it. This situation between Gryffindor and Slytherin must be eating away at you."

For one short, awful moment, Albus felt a tingle rush through his body as his throat closed and his eyes misted over. But he blinked it back and stood up straighter instead.

"You're worried about your sister, aren't you?" Malcolm asked.

 _Not just Lily… James. My friends. Everyone._ He thought these things but did not speak his thoughts. Instead, Albus only said, "A bit. I don't get to see her much anymore."

"Sometimes friends, family members, even siblings, drift away from each other as they get older," Malcolm said, his voice tinged with a sadness Albus had never heard. "But that's not what this is. This conflict, this… war, if you will – has separated you from people you love. And that's not right."

"No," Albus agreed, for once. "It's not."

"Suppose I said I knew of a way to stop it – to bring things back to the way they are," Malcolm said. "Would you be willing to help me? You could be a hero. Finally recognized for the talent you have –"

"No."

The word was out of his mouth without much thought – but even in the encroaching soundless pause, even as Professor Malcolm's piercing, blue eyes widened alarmingly for a second, Albus knew deep down that it had not been a mistake, or a slip of the tongue.

He had said it – and he had meant it.

"No?" Malcolm repeated, as if Albus had said a word in a foreign language. "Don't you want to help put a stop to this?"

"Not to be a hero," Albus answered. "I just want the people I care about to be safe."

"A fine sentiment," Malcolm replied. "I'm not entirely convinced it's the truth, though."

A long silence followed.

"Professor?" Albus queried. "If you've got nothing else to say to me, then maybe I should go."

"Yes," Malcolm replied, and any warmth that had ever been in his voice was now gone, as it if it had never existed. "Maybe you should, Mr. Potter."

Albus didn't realize how deathly afraid he'd been until halfway down the staircase, when his knees nearly gave way underneath him. He felt a chill across his entire body, yet beads of sweat were forming on his nose. His heart was punching him in the ribs from within, and numbness was attacking his fingertips like thousands of tiny needles assaulting hands that felt like they belonged to someone else.

But he knew better now than to let anyone but a select few see weakness – so he straightened himself again, and walked.

He reached the bottom.

"Malcolm give you another speech?" Sylvia emerged from sort-of underneath the stairs, wearing her wry, mischievous smile. It slid off her face after a second, though, replaced now by a look of mild concern. "You alright?"

Albus, obviously, had never been struck by lightning. He could not imagine anything else, however, to compare to the sensation he felt when she reached up with a hand and touched his temple. A mild flicker of what looked like disgust crossed her face. His heart lurched and shrank like a wounded animal. By the time he was able to read the details of her expression, it had changed to one of pity – his least favorite of her usual faces, if he indeed had one. Still, it was better than disgust.

"God, you're clammy," she remarked. "Are you alright? You're not coming down with something, are you?"

Albus didn't know how to answer, somewhat because of shame. Did he really look that pathetic?

Sylvia frowned. "What did he say to you? Did something happen?"

 _I think I made an enemy_ , was the first thing that came to mind. The first thing to mind, however, was seldom ever what actually came out of Albus Potter's mouth. He'd developed a talent for making sure people didn't worry too much about him. So, instead, he gave a softened version of the truth. "I don't think he likes me very much."

Sylvia raised an eyebrow and said, very seriously, "I don't think he likes anything very much."

Albus found himself smiling in spite of himself. Making people smile even when the reasons to do so were few and far between… that was _her_ talent.

And that was why he felt he could get through… today, at the very least.

"So…" she drawled hesitantly. "We've got a little over an hour of free time."

"Yeah, I guess so," Albus said. What Malcolm had done was quite unusual for him on lecture days. He usually lectured right until the class was over and hardly a moment sooner.

"What do you want to do?" Sylvia asked. Albus shrugged. She smiled. "It's nice out. May not be that way for much longer. Besides, we've got Magical Creatures next, so we'll have to head that way anyways."

"Good point," Albus said, and they started away from Malcolm's tower classroom.

"Between you and me, though, I kind of want to skive off and fly. Bowtruckles don't sound much more interesting than flobberworms…."

 **Brynne**

"Walter!"

Brynne's teeth gnashed in irritation behind her closed lips. She had been relaxing, trying to think…

Actually, she had very nearly dozed off. To her mild surprise, it was quite comfortable here.

Alas, she now had to open her eyes and address whoever was shouting at her. It wasn't normal, for one. Slytherins weren't typically that loud.

Standing behind one of the couches, green flickers of light dancing across her pale face, was a tall girl whose black robes bore the emblem of the Slytherin Prefect – a green and silver badge that looked even more resplendent in the ambient light. Her black hair was pulled back into such a ponytail so tight that it looked almost painful. Perhaps, Brynne thought, that was why Amarilys Pucey was constantly in such a sour mood.

"Are you mad?" Pucey asked. "Get away from there."

"Am I breaking any rules?" Brynne asked.

"Well, no—but…" Pucey stammered. "You're far too close to the hearth. Do you think I want to have to explain that to Professor Ambrose, if you caught fire somehow?"

"You think I wouldn't know it if I was on fire?" Brynne asked. "I've been here fifteen minutes. And it's freezing down here."

"You're not close enough on the chairs?" Pucey queried, sweeping her arm across the couch as if Brynne could not see it.

But Brynne leaned against the wall right next to the fireplace and simply said, "I feel like being here."

Pucey puffed a breath through her jaws like a whickering horse.

"You're strange, Walter."

And she finally walked off.

She closed her eyes, trying her best to relax. Panic would do no good here…

"You don't like chairs now?"

Brynne tried not to cringe. Of all times to want to have a conversation, and _him_ of all people…

She opened her eyes again, and looked up. Phillip Bletchley had grown in the past year. He looked nearly a giant from this vantage point, even taking a step backward.

"This looks…" he said haltingly, never finishing the sentence. Instead, he backed himself the brick wall next to the hearth as well, and slid down to sit level with Brynne. Neither one spoke for a while. Neither one as much as looked at each other.

She was unprepared for everything she felt – simultaneously drawn and repulsed, relieved and yet tense, feeling a sense of pity and yet a sense of disgust… sad he had ever left, yet angry now that he was crawling back. When she finally spoke, it was with a mix of all of the above:

"I thought we had nothing to say to each other."

"You may have nothing to say to me… I have things I'd like to say to you," Bletchley replied.

"And what if I don't want to listen?" asked Brynne, finally turning her head.

"Then you'll wind up getting hurt…" he answered, still not looking at her, although she could have sworn he'd heard his voice break a bit on the last word. "And I don't want that."

"You don't, do you?" Brynne asked, her question a murmur of calm, but naked disbelief. "Who's to say you haven't hurt me already?"

"Because I'm not close enough to you to hurt you," Bletchley said, sounding resigned.

Brynne sighed through her nostrils. "I never said that."

"You've thought it," Bletchley argued.

"You read minds now," Brynne replied. Deep down, she knew she wasn't helping the situation by being sarcastic. Another part of her no longer cared.

"No," Bletchley, somewhat to Brynne's surprise, completely kept his cool. "I just take hints well. I just… I wish I knew what happened. Last year, I thought… maybe that was just me being stupid. Maybe… maybe I just wasn't ever good enough."

The hearth crackled for a long while before Brynne finally spoke.

"You don't understand me."

Bletchley's mouth opened in a pained expression. "What?"

"I don't think you're a bad person, Phillip," Brynne said. "But you don't understand me. We believe differently."

Bletchley swallowed hard. In a cracked whisper, punctuated by a bit of a chuckle, he agreed, "…We do, don't we?"

Brynne shut her eyes tight, and their corners were wet before she knew what had even happened. Her eyes stared at nothing in particular, running now with each breath she tried to take.

"I know what you want to do," Bletchley said. "And I came here to try to stop you. But I won't be able to, will I?"

Brynne shook her head. "No."

Bletchley heaved a breath – a sound that almost could have been mistaken for an expression of relief. "I won't ever raise my wand or hand to hurt you. I promise. But… I can't guarantee that for the others."

He stood, and remained still for a pause.

"I do get one thing," he said. "What you feel about him… you can't really help that. I can't either, though. I hate him. Probably always will. If you're happy in the end, I'll hate him. If you aren't, I'll hate him worse."

Then, though, he crouched down in front of Brynne and looked her right in the eyes. To her great surprise (not completely unpleasant), he reached forward and wiped away a tear or two that had been hanging on one of her cheeks.

"I can't help this either," he said, and as he looked at her, his face went back in time, back to when she could look him in the eyes and find warmth and little to no bitterness. "That's why it's probably best this way…"

But he stood up again, and before he walked away for the last time, he said, coldly enough to make Brynne shiver a bit next to the dungeon's warm fire:

" _Now_ we have nothing left to say to each other."

Brynne questioned herself inwardly as she sat there alone again. Shouldn't she have been hurting, or at least disappointed…? Yet, she felt relieved – if, indeed, she felt anything. Maybe it was because, deep down, she had known this moment was coming, ever since the first morning she woke up this past summer and realized how clearly she saw _both_ of them…

Maybe her heart was broken. Not the 'hurt' sort of broken – but in the way a clock fails to move the way it should. That thought, the possibility that she was somehow ruined inside, no longer able to feel anything… that frightened her.

Brynne finally got to her feet.

The 'others'…

"Brynne."

Brynne had to try not to jump when she saw the boy leaning over the couch. Kadric Howell had a gift for moving quietly. It was one of the things that made him so…

'Useful' was such an awful word. He was more than a pawn.

It was his talent. It was what he could use to help. She knew that – but, more importantly, he knew that. Everyone was good at _something_.

"How many?" she asked, a bit afraid to hear the answer.

"Twenty, at least."

A heavy breath escaped Brynne's nostrils. "Sounds about right. You didn't get names, did you?"

"You mean, the actual list? No," Kadric sighed. "Nott was milling about. He would have noticed me."

Brynne's teeth grit within her mouth. She had been hoping for the last several days that she could sway Tellius – but the more she thought about it, the more she realized she would have had an easier time teaching letters to a mountain troll.

"Stealing the list outright would've been a bad idea from the off," Kadric conceded. "Everyone would have suspected us."

"Plus, Phillip and Tellius know the both of us," Brynne added. "You're right. There's no way we would have gotten away clear."

"…Some kind of speech by Malcolm," Kadric commented. "What's he playing at?"

"Nothing," Brynne replied succinctly. "He helped create this mess and now he wants to be the savior."

"I get that part," Kadric replied. "But _why_? Why go through all that trouble?"

"It's like I said," Brynne repeated. "He wants to be the savior. He wants to be famous as a savior." Smiling sadly, she added, "He's only slightly more selfish than I am."

Kadric frowned, almost as if personally insulted. "Don't say things like that…"

"It's the truth," she countered. "I thought there was some… noble reason that I didn't want the Houses to fracture. I told myself that I didn't want to see something like what happened to my parents. But… that was a different time. There's nearly no chance of a group like _Gladius Leo_ ever appearing again. I was lying to myself. In the end… I'm not much better than he is."

"That's _not_ true," Kadric replied firmly. "That's not true at all. You're not doing this for power or glory, right?"

Brynne swallowed hard, and thought.

"If I ever got power, I'd use it to change things for the better," she replied. _If I achieved my dream one day… Headmistress of Hogwarts – that's what I'd do._ "But that's not why…"

She turned to look at the fire, and her thoughts made the images in her mind. She shivered again as she remembered the intense pain, like white-hot needles piercing each of her pores, all armed with the sort of hatred that was the only way such pain could be inflicted. That was no opinion. Rather, that was the law of this particular magic. It was precisely what made it Dark magic of the highest and most terrible order.

Unforgivable curses, she realized after that day, were not Unforgivable because of what the curses did. After all, there were thousands of ways to cause pain, with magic and otherwise. They were Unforgivable because of the level of darkness and hate that needed to be inside an individual in order to cast them effectively. It may have been better to say that the caster was Unforgivable as opposed to the curse. Such animus within a human being's soul made them a general danger to society.

Her assailant hadn't simply wanted her to die; he could have done that, she thought now with another shiver. He wanted her to suffer – to suffer so much that she begged for death. Then, he wanted to torture her all the more by withholding it. That had been his aim.

But something had happened – a candlelight of a moment that, ironically, with every horrible summer's night of reliving that fateful afternoon, split through the dark fog of her dreams all the more clearly.

Slipping in and out of consciousness on the ground, she remembered the sound of a yell, vaguely perceiving light from flashing spells. Her eyes, blurred with tears and hardly seeing, focused on a dragging beast with two uneven limbs, pulling itself across the floor at a slow crawl. A pane of glass shattered somewhere in the distance. Everything went black for a moment. The next sensation she felt was something brushing against her hand. Her eyes, with their blue irises, felt like they were made of solid stone. It seemed to take an almighty effort for her to focus her eyes on her outstretched hand. Somehow, she managed it, and there saw another hand, reaching, touching her finger just barely. The hand belonged to a boy who lay almost prone on the ground in a heap, face-down against the carpet, utterly spent. She identified him by his somewhat curled, dark hair. Her hand tried to close the last of the distance to grab his, but her arms were leaden. A moment later, she heard a band of quiet voices, and, sensing a strange, out-of-place wave of calm envelop her, sank into blissful darkness and nonfeeling…

That was what she remembered – a fight being taken up on her behalf, to save what was left of her, and then _him,_ injured, crawling on his hands and knees, then dragging himself by one hand and his chin, trying to do something, _anything_ , to reach her, to try to protect her from what was happening…

The fire in front of her seemed now to be made manifest in her very bones. Something hot started in her chest, coursed through her shoulders, arms, hands, fingertips; then her legs, knees, feet, toes…

Her fists clenched and loosened.

"If you're going to back out…" she heard herself say.

"We went over this already," Kadric interrupted. "I'm in. Lena, too. But just us three, in the middle of all this…"

"I know," Brynne said. "We don't have a chance. We need to get a message to Gryffindor."

By Gryffindor, she had meant 'one of a certain three people in Gryffindor.' But, of course, Kadric Howell knew that already because she had told him.

"How do you propose we do _that_?" he asked doubtfully.

Brynne thought for a moment. She'd been mulling over a shell of a plan for weeks now. "I think James has a cousin in Ravenclaw. I haven't met him, but I know he's a second year."

"I don't know a lot of second years," admitted Kadric. Then, he added, "I don't know many people, full stop."

"Lena might, though," Brynne pointed out. "If he's in second year – Slytherin and Ravenclaw have double Defence together. Let's see if she can get him to give _them_ a message."

"I'll let her know," Kadric said. "What about me?"

 _You get the difficult part,_ Brynne thought to herself. "Lilith Cross."

"What about _her_?" Kadric questioned, and Brynne could hear a trace of trepidation. It was a risk… but one where the potential reward was worth it.

"She's back this year, if you haven't noticed – and if my guess is right, she'll be completely rogue. She'll have people after her," she replied. Then she turned to Kadric, so he could see the urgency in her eyes.

Judging by his expression when she looked at him, he already understood. Therefore, there would be no mistaking the importance of what she said next:

"We have to get to her first."


	10. Chapter 10: The New Lions

Chapter 10: The New Lions

"Nice weather for mid-October, right?" Freddy Weasley queried from the opposite end of a small box.

"Bit windy, but it could be worse—" James answered, from his end of the same box, watching his steps carefully as he and his cousin trudged down the steep hill that led to the practice pitch. Almost on cue, a mid-autumn breeze came along and blew some hair into his eyes. He stubbed his toe against something on the ground and stumbled awfully, eliciting a yell from the other side of the box.

"Watch it!" Freddy implored in a bit of a panic.

"Sorry," sighed James. "Did we _have_ to pull out the live Bludgers? These things are bloody heavy for as small as they are…"

"Beaters haven't gotten any live practice hitting Bludgers in a while," Freddy pointed out. "And the rest of you lot haven't had much live practice dodging them. The match is coming up soon, and Ravenclaw's got the biggest Beaters in the school, remember?"

"You might've reminded us," James answered. "About twenty times now, mind. No offense, but… how are you and McLaggen supposed to imitate Donaghan Craig and that other bloke – what was his name? Sounds like McLaggen, but it's not…"

"Nevan McFadden," Freddy reminded him.

"McFadden – that's it. Although he's not nearly as big as Craig is," James argued.

"Big enough to crack your skull if you're not paying attention," Freddy said soberly. "Better aim than Craig, too."

"I'm guessing Rodney's a no-go?" James asked after a bit more silent walking. Freddy frowned.

"I know how he feels, but…" he trailed off. Asher Rodney, who hadn't taken up a bat in a game since he'd joined the team two years ago, had asked to play Beater for the next match against Ravenclaw – a bit unsubtle, James thought. He also knew that Rodney didn't care. Up until this year, he'd simply disliked the Ravenclaw Beater, who had fouled him and knocked him out of the finals match against Ravenclaw two years ago. Last year, though, Donaghan Craig had aimed a Bludger illegally at Gemma Bridge in a bout of frustration. He hit his mark, broke her wrist, and effectively ended her Quidditch career not a year after it had started. It was at that point that Rodney's dislike for Craig had escalated into outright hatred. "I'd have to put Mac on the bench. He doesn't deserve that. He's been flying well."

James agreed.

"Thanks for volunteering for this, by the way," Freddy added.

"No problem," James answered. Sure, carrying the box of Quidditch balls on a Friday afternoon right after classes let out wasn't James's idea of a good time… but he would have been lying if he'd said he felt comfortable with Freddy going anywhere by himself this close to the match.

The last couple of weeks had been tense at Hogwarts, to say the least. The Disciplinary Panel hearing for which Professor Wenster had made such a show had taken place a few days after the attack on Armon Addison. The good news was that, after the initial eye problem went away, Addison seemed no worse for wear. In fact, much to his chagrin, Madam Pomfrey (in typical Madam Pomfrey fashion) kept him in the hospital wing a day or two longer than necessary. The bad news – and the news that had Gryffindor Tower up in arms – was that the Slytherin Prefects apparently had little to no information on what had happened. Slytherin was the most obvious suspect, but no one could prove that it was a Slytherin who had done it, let alone _which_ Slytherin had done it. Far from being vindicated, though, Slytherin House was apoplectic that they had been so readily suspected. After a week of Gryffindor House refusing to eat in the Great Hall out of protest, they slowly trickled back only for Slytherin to take its leave after what they thought was unfair treatment by the Headmaster. Ambrose, who still ate in the Hall, didn't appear to have backed the Slytherins' protest, but seemed to understand that the situation was so delicate that perhaps it was for the best, for the time being.

"Bloody mess," Freddy muttered, apparently ruminating over recent events as well. "Gonna be hard enough to focus on a match without all this other rubbish happening…"

Godric's Guard had offered to escort Freddy and other Quidditch team members to the pitch on practice afternoons. Freddy had turned them down flat each time. Not only did he want nothing to do with the group, but it had taken a fairly lengthy discussion to restrain him from kicking Scorpius Malfoy off the team for having joined. James had somewhat reluctantly taken Scorpius's side in that particular debate – mainly because he wanted no part of being forced to play Seeker with Scorpius gone. Also, Scorpius was a complicated bloke. James somehow got the feeling that he hadn't simply joined for the chance to crack Slytherin heads.

Maybe he was just trying to show his loyalty to the House, James thought. Being so loyal to a House was completely mad, in James's opinion. Still, if people wanted to show pride in where the Sorting Hat had placed them, he couldn't say that was _wrong_ … so long as they didn't use it as an excuse to hurt anyone.

Freddy was very clear with Scorpius; if he heard so much as a whisper of his being involved with anything awful happening to a Slytherin student, then Scorpius was off the team immediately. James decided for now not to point out that, if Freddy made that decision, Professor Wenster could (and probably would) overrule him as Acting Head of House. Other than picking their Captains, Heads of Houses rarely involved themselves with the Quidditch roster. They _did_ have the authority, though, should they choose to use it.

"What's today's date again?" asked James.

"Honestly, how do you get through classes like that?" Freddy mocked him good-naturedly. "Today's the 18th."

James's stomach lurched.

Something must have shown on his face because Freddy, after a couple of moments, asked, "You alright?"

"I'm fine," James lied, not even able to hide a bit of sadness in his voice. Freddy gave James a sideways glance of obvious doubt, but didn't press the issue. __

They finally arrived at the pitch. As practice didn't actually start for another fifteen minutes, they were the first ones there. They set their brooms and the box of Quidditch balls down, and Freddy stepped away to roll his shoulders and stretch, while James watched for a long moment.

Oddly, the happenings of that evening had not often been the subject of his nightmares. Most would have considered that a mercy, but the fact was that the images seemed to be burned to the inside of his eyelids during waking hours. His mind would wander and arrive regularly in the same places.

Indeed, not much had changed since the summer.

"James," Freddy's voice came from much closer than James was expecting. He looked up into the face of his older cousin, who was now right in front of him and wearing an expression of concern. "You sure you're alright?"

James gave a wordless sigh in response. Freddy took the hint and went to walk away again.

"Today's her birthday."

It slipped out. Freddy stopped where he was and turned around. James felt awful; they were supposed to be getting ready for the big match, Freddy's first match as the official Captain…

"You must really miss her, don't you?" he asked seriously.

James didn't speak. It felt like an invisible hand was choking him.

Freddy let out a sigh through his nose. "You know… I had a crush on Laurel Cross for most all of our third year and the next summer before I could pluck up the courage to ask her out."

James looked up. Freddy hadn't said much of anything about Laurel in almost twoyears.

"I finally did," Freddy recalled, "the day we went back to Hogwarts. When it ended… well, you remember. I was pretty cut up for a while. But, you know… I got over it."

James frowned and averted his eyes. This was even less helpful than he'd anticipated.

"So that's what I should do?" he asked. "Just take some more time and hope to get over it?"

Freddy sighed heavily. "…No."

There was a pause.

"You're a hell of a Chaser, James," Freddy said, his voice now leaden and almost reluctant. "And as your Captain, I'd be lying if I said this team's better off without you. But you're also family… and I'm thinking you might be better off without the team right now."

James went dumb for a moment, stunned.

"You're kicking me off?" he finally asked, barely able to pronounce the words with how dry his mouth had gone.

"No. God, no," Freddy said. "I'm just saying, you could walk away – today, even – and I wouldn't think any less of you."

James shook his head.

"Honestly, Freddy, it's not that big a deal—"

"You're _lying_ ," Freddy interrupted bluntly. "I know why Uncle Harry sent you to London. You haven't been flying quite right all year, either. I'm not thick, James – especially when you almost _killed_ me once for being stupid enough to bring her name up."

James swallowed hard and looked down. He and Freddy remembered that incident a bit differently. Freddy had mentioned that Albus would get hurt if he stayed on his current path, and James had lost it. But he had mentioned her, too – and now James wasn't sure which straw had been the last one after all…

But then Freddy said, "You're not right, James. You're obviously–"

"Yeah – I know." he finally lost his patience. "What the hell am I supposed to do about it?" 

The fact was, James had always regarded Quidditch as a fun hobby. That wasn't to say he didn't take it seriously, but he, unlike Scorpius and unlike others on his own team (young Athena Wood, for example), never had any illusions of carrying Quidditch past Hogwarts. He was fair at it, and he enjoyed it. He didn't exactly forget what was happening down on the Hogwarts grounds when he was up in the air, but it all became… smaller. It was a place where he knew, for the most part, what to do. Chasing a red ball through the sky was far easier than contemplating dark plots and school politics. Life was simpler up there.

Quidditch kept him sane in some ways. That was why he couldn't let it go just yet. He knew the place he might go to now, if he put it behind him, and it wasn't a place he could live without losing bits of himself. He needed to be whole.

"Go do what you've got to do," Freddy suggested. "Our second match isn't until February and we've got enough reserves—"

But James shook his head. "I'm not going to do that to you. Or to _me._ Honestly, I'm happier here than I am anywhere else… for what that's worth."

Freddy seemed to be satisfied by his answer.

"Eyes on the prize, then," he implored him. "We've got a title to defend."

Things picked up for him in practice after that conversation; it was as if all the things that had been distractions now caused him to redouble his focus. The timing could not have been better, either, with the first match of the year quickly approaching. The situation with Scorpius Malfoy remained a bit tense, with him talking to few people during practice. Then again, that was sort of normal, so everyone had just learned to live with it. As it turned out, the concept of Quidditch being an escape held true for nearly everyone on the team.

The week leading up to the match, however, they found out some troubling news through the _Daily Prophet_.

Hannah Longbottom, the landlady at the Leaky Cauldron, had taken very ill. While she was expected, eventually, to make a full recovery, her husband didn't feel comfortable leaving her by herself in her current state – let alone with their infant daughter.

The upshot of this was that Professor Neville Longbottom was not coming back to Hogwarts – at least not very soon. By the look of things, the school – more specifically, Gryffindor House – would have to survive without him until after the Christmas holidays. Few Gryffindors were happy about this except perhaps for Professor Wenster, who remained aloof as per usual, standing sentinel over the Great Hall while the Hogwarts students ate their meals. It was thoroughly unnecessary except to look intimidating, James thought. Of course there hadn't been a fight in the Great Hall. Even the extremists on either side wouldn't be daft enough to try anything in full view of the whole student body. Besides, the few Slytherins that began trickling back into the Great Hall for meals after their initial protest, didn't want any trouble. Most of them, anyway.

Once or twice, James caught sight of Brynne in the Great Hall, in head-down, whispering huddles with a couple of other Slytherins he only vaguely recognized. Lily was conspicuous by her absence during these particular meetings. James did see her, too, from time to time – usually with the Slytherin girls from her own year.

 _At least she isn't alone_ , James reasoned, watching her eating with two other girls on the last Friday night before the match. He wondered, though, where she would go to see the match. Her group of friends seemed alright, but none of them seemed like the type that would like Quidditch…

The day of the match arrived almost without fanfare. James almost had to remind himself of the state of things. When he did, though, it created a leaden sensation in the pit of his stomach that he now had to try to contemplate away. Today was really going to be the first day since the Welcoming Feast where the majority of the school was assembled in the same spot. The standing room wall, where most students watched the match, had been sectioned off by House, with Slytherin and Gryffindor naturally as far away as they could be placed. James didn't know how well this would work, though. It was the weekend, and while some students would show their pride by wearing their school robes or at least dressing in House colors during Quidditch matches, not everybody did.

There were already rumors in Gryffindor Tower that students from Slytherin (who seemed to have organized themselves into a faction eerily similar to Godric's Guard) were going to infiltrate the Gryffindor sections and cause trouble. James didn't want to buy it, especially since the salesman was none other than Eamonn Temple. As a Gryffindor himself, though, he couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable in secluded areas of the castle, wondering if a Slytherin that didn't know him well (or perhaps one that did, like Phillip Bletchley) would pop out from behind a door or one of the suits of armor and try to hex him in the lead-up to the match.

He hardly went anywhere alone, of course. Murphy was with him almost everywhere except Quidditch practices and the lavatory (because, loyal to each other as they were, they had to draw the line _somewhere_ ). Murphy didn't join him for breakfast the morning of the match, though. He was going to hang back and make sure Albus and Rose got to the match alright.

James tried not to feel guilty – after all, Murphy had volunteered without James even asking – but he didn't deserve a friend like Murphy and he knew it.

"Oi, James…" Freddy leaned to his ear from his left. The team, who had trickled into the Great Hall for breakfast in twos and threes (James had been stuck with Brookstanton, who wasn't the best company) decided to eat together. "Did I tell you Dad's coming?"

"Really? Uncle George?" James responded. "Well, if he usually watches one shop and Uncle Ron does the other…"

"Uncle Ron gave Dad Hogsmeade this weekend – probably knew he'd want to come watch," Freddy mentioned. Then, with a frown, he added, "Hogsmeade's been slow… you know, now that the students aren't going out there anymore during term. The shop can survive without him for a few hours."

"Right," James uttered a bit sadly.

James probably wouldn't be able to see Uncle George, he thought. That was unfortunate. He wanted to hear about whether Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes had any interesting new stock. Uncle George was very fair; he paid anyone who worked at his shop. That included his own children. That also included James, who earned a few Galleons in his time at the shop in the summer. James didn't need much of anything, and he hadn't been able to go to Hogsmeade to spend the money. He thought he'd get his family nicer gifts this year. Murphy, too. _Especially_ Murphy.

The table was unusually quiet. Sylvia Thomas and Scorpius Malfoy were sitting across from each other but not speaking. Every few seconds, Sylvia would lift her head to say something, but would change her mind. Scorpius simply stared at his cooling plate of uneaten food, strangely looking like he would rather be somewhere else than here at the moment.

It was that face, the one that he'd seen on Scorpius during breakfast, that gave James the sense of foreboding that stuck with him all the way to the pitch.

The day was raw by early November standards, the sky an unfriendly monochrome sheet that indicated that, while rain was not here yet, it might visit a bit later. The occasional gusts would have been tolerable but for the lack of sun; on an overcast day like today, there was just enough chill in the air for the wind to lance through layers of cloth when it moved. James had played in worse, but it was a bit uncomfortable.

Less comfortable still was the overall atmosphere. It was much too quiet for a Quidditch match. The crowd of students that had turned out (lower, James thought, than normal – or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him) seemed subdued and even furtive. It was almost as if no one was sure if they were allowed to truly enjoy themselves. It was almost as if they expected Headmaster Flitwick's small but magically amplified voice to ring through the stadium, saying that something had gone horribly wrong and that this match was going to be cancelled.

James tried to put these thoughts and more from his mind as he approached the center of the pitch with his ten teammates. After all, he was here, and this match was happening, so he might as well win it. As the blue-robed Ravenclaws came into view, however, he caught sight of something – or, rather, someone – he hadn't been expecting to see.

The four teams representing their Houses never handed each other their updated rosters when tryouts happened, but with about a month or so between the initial tryouts and the first match, word of mouth usually ensured that most people had an idea of who had made the cut. As for Ravenclaw, they were an experienced team last year with only one seventh year on their first line. So unless someone quit or became one of the head students, the Gryffindor team had come into this match expecting their roster to be largely the same.

Indeed, it appeared, if James remembered most of their faces correctly, six of the starting players from last year (their captain, Maxwell, had graduated) had returned for Ravenclaw. The brunette Chaser, Cordelia Byrne; next to her, her boyfriend and Hogwarts' most intimidating Beater, Donaghan Craig, looking vast as ever; the other Beater, McFadden. Then there was Davies, another girl; Rohan Lynch, the Seeker...

But it was down toward the end of the line that James's eyes focused – on a boy, considerably smaller than the others, with strawberry blond hair that might as well have been on fire, as much as it stood out against the blue of his robes.

"Louis is playing for them now?" James muttered to Freddy. "You didn't tell me that."

"I didn't know for sure," Freddy answered.

Indeed, news about Quidditch rosters didn't travel nearly as far these days. James had only seen his younger cousin, Louis Weasley, in passing a few times in the last several week. He certainly didn't know Louis had tried out for and made the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and even now he had no idea what position he played.

With a family as big as his was, there were always some cousins that nobody kept track of much. He'd never been as close to Uncle Bill's or Uncle Percy's children. Uncle Bill lived on the coast and James only saw him once, maybe twice a year. Uncle Percy's children were both girls, and much younger. Not to mention that James's mother took issue with Aunt Audrey and how she chose to raise the girls, which was another story entirely…

"Captains, to the center." With all the chaos around the school, it was a small, strange relief for James to see that Arbiter Dean Thomas hadn't changed much. Still dark, still tall, still with a warm bearing and a sharp eye. Try as he might to play the part of the impartial official, he couldn't help giving the shortest glance and smile to his daughter, who was standing a few spots away from James in the Gryffindor lineup.

James felt the slight chill that came with extra space as Freddy vacated the spot directly to his left. From the Ravenclaw lineup emerged Cordelia Byrne, who had been named Captain over the two seventh year Beaters in a move that surprised absolutely nobody.

Both captains turned in slips of parchment to Arbiter Thomas, who looked them over. The two shook hands. There was an exchange of words that James couldn't hear from here before the two parted ways. When they did, though, Freddy was wearing a smirk on his face.

"What was that about?" McLaggen dared to ask as Freddy returned to the Gryffindor line.

"Apparently, Craig's promised not to break any bones on our Chasers," Freddy replied.

" _What?!_ " Asher Rodney snapped suddenly, attempting to break from the line and turn back toward where the Ravenclaws were walking away. James cringed. Freddy should have known, he thought, that this particular choice of words wouldn't go over well.

"Calm down," Freddy advised Rodney, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him firmly back into line. "She can go on not taking us seriously if she likes. It'll make it better when we beat them. Again."

This was enough to convince Rodney not to do anything daft – _barely._ He was visibly muttering something to himself when the Gryffindors took to the air. In the silence before the action started, James felt a breeze and shivered; now that they were off the ground, he was noticing just how chilly it was. Rodney, as the middle Chaser, was going to be the one to go for the initial tip. Opposite him was Cordelia Byrne. Freddy and James had disagreed over that matchup (privately, of course); Rodney was a fair flyer and the best at defense, but his broom wasn't as good as Cordelia's – nor James's, for that matter. James wasn't about to press the issue in front of teammates, though; he didn't want to make his cousin look like a fool.

That meant taking care of his own end against his opposite number – a boy, wearing the number eight, a shade older than he, strapping, with a downturned nose upon which sat a pair of shaded goggles. Apparently, Lennox was his surname, and James and he shared a given name – although the Ravenclaw Chaser went by Jimmy. He'd been a reserve last year, and with three good Chasers in front of him, hadn't played much.

Speaking of reserves, it appeared James wouldn't be seeing Louis until later, if at all. He couldn't say he was shocked; most of Ravenclaw's team was fifth year or older.

Lennox glanced at Cordelia, prompting James to look in that direction as well. The Quaffle had been tossed. Both Rodney and Cordelia went for it. Neither could secure it, but someone had gotten a hand on it and tipped it in James's direction. He reached…

His world lurched and spun on its ear as he felt a sting about the temple region while a clump of his hair was stretched to its limit and nearly yanked out of his scalp. As he righted himself, he looked around and threw up his hands. "FOUL!" No dice.

"Damn –" James wheeled around to give chase to Lennox, who already had the Quaffle in hand. Thankfully, his being a bit lighter than Lennox made him a bit faster in the tailwind. Using Lennox's draft to get around him, he raised his arms in defense right as Lennox reared back, intending to pass the ball. Lennox saw him at the last moment, swore floridly, and tucked the Quaffle under his arm pit. James punched at it with his left hand, but missed as Lennox drifted away…

A groan filled the stadium, but even that could not fully muffle the nasty _thud_ James heard. Lennox had swerved right into the path of a Bludger, which had caught him flush. He wheezed and lost his grip on the Quaffle. James was on the spot quickly, underneath Lennox to take possession for his team.

Quaffle safely under his arm, James took a brief moment to scan the pitch. Sylvia Thomas was closest to him, but Marjery Davies was harassing her and she couldn't get free.

"Potter!" The voice came from behind James. Sensing someone closing in on him from the other side, he pushed the Quaffle out to his right, where it was caught by Rodney.

"Lennox! Switch!" Someone called. Immediately, Lennox sped by James to chase after Rodney, who had a two-second headstart. James looked over his shoulder and saw Cordelia Byrne closing on him.

"Alright, have it your way," James muttered, urging his Cleansweep to full speed. From a distance, he could see Rodney, who had to duck to avoid a Bludger. Feeling the thrilling lurch in his gut that came with diving, James angled his broom downward. 

Rodney saw James, made to throw, but hesitated. James soon figured out why; a blur sped past him, nearly knocking him off his broom. Once that had gone by, James slowed down a bit, and Rodney passed the Quaffle. Something appeared to have perturbed him, though, because he let off a swear while the ball was still in midair.

James reached out somewhat gingerly, and it turned out to be a good thing. Rodney's hesitation had given Cordelia Byrne time to catch up. She interposed herself between the two boys to intercept the pass…

 _WHAM!_

James felt his entire world quake. The hit had come not from Cordelia, but on his other shoulder. Somebody had rammed into him hard in his blind spot.

He tried to focus his eyes, already feeling his neck tightening…

 **Albus**

"…Uh-oh."

Albus turned to his right immediately, feeling his heart start to thud against his ribs in panic. _'Uh-oh'_ was never good in any circumstance.

"What's going on?" he asked Rowan Lester, who was standing next to him and currently removing his eyes from a pair of old Omnioculars. Rose hadn't shown up, and the pair they usually shared during the matches were hers.

But never mind all that for now. Albus wanted to know why Rowan seemed so concerned.

"I think James is hurt," Rowan commented, and he _really_ did look worried. Rowan volunteered his Omnioculars so Albus could see for himself.

"Hurt?" Albus heard a voice near him repeat as he scanned the pitch for his brother's jersey number thirteen. "What happened?"

It was a girl's voice.

A very, very familiar girl's voice.

Albus yanked his face out of the Omnioculars and turned to his left.

Indeed, there was a girl standing there. Her hair was a shiny black bob cut that perhaps would have looked more in place on a woman thrice her age.

It was good enough to fool other people, maybe, but not him. He knew every detail of her face.

Albus was dumbstruck and froze for a moment, even as a pained unison groan erupted around him, indicating (Albus assumed) that Ravenclaw had scored the first goal and taken an early lead.

"Oi," Rowan asked. "Who's that?"

Albus hesitated for a moment. Strictly speaking, this wasn't _allowed_.

"Rowan?" she angled her head around Albus for a moment, her hand flat atop her 'hair'. An expression of confusion flashed across Rowan's face. "You're Rowan Lester, right? Brynne told me to find you if I…"

"Excuse me!" Before Albus could ask one of _several_ questions he now had, another voice joined the conversation. This one, too, was familiar, but Albus, as he turned to look, was hoping to _Merlin_ that it wasn't who it sounded like.

No such luck.

Descending the stairs a bit awkwardly was the intimidating, perpetually grumpy Gryffindor Prefect and (worse) founder of Godric's Guard, Eamonn Temple.

"Down in front!" Temple went on like no one had heard him, even though all three students he was shouting at were watching him descend the stairs toward them. He arrived at their row and loomed over Albus and the girl. "I don't recognize your face. Who are you? And be careful how you answer. I'm a Prefect. Lying to me would be a very, _very_ bad idea."

A primal instinct that Albus hadn't felt in a _very_ long time caused his entire body to tauten, but he kept it suppressed. Barely. "Can't you back up a step and give us some room?" he asked.

"Quiet, Potter, I wasn't speaking to you," Temple said immediately. "As I was saying, young miss, it might be a good idea for you to go back to whoever sent you. You start any trouble over here, and detention will be the least of your worries."

"I don't want any trouble. Promise," the girl replied – but she did not seem the least bit cowed.

"She's here with me," Albus spoke up suddenly. "Is that good enough for you?"

"No," Temple replied, as Albus almost expected. "It isn't. You don't have the authority to decide who gets to be where. _I'm_ Prefect, so I do."

The girl muttered under her breath, "Must be fun for you."

Temple smiled. Albus was immediately on guard; the smile reminded him of the ones Professor Malcolm gave – smiles that typically meant nothing good.

"Alright," he said, "Like I said, I'm a Prefect, which means I'm responsible for the safety of Gryffindor House."

Albus saw Temple's hand slide toward his robes.

It was only after Albus had yanked the girl behind him by her robes (she gave a squeal and staggered, and Albus did not look to see whether she had kept her feet) and thrown himself in front of her that it occurred to him that he had left his own wand back in the dormitories.

This appeared to be fine for a moment. Either Temple was frozen by shock or he was unwilling to treat a known Gryffindor in the same way that he would have treated a stranger. If Albus didn't know better, though, he would have said that the twitch behind Temple's furrowed brow was him trying to manage his temper – and barely succeeding. Temple opened his mouth but then bit his lip, probably to keep from saying something quite nasty. When he did speak, though, there was a quaver in his voice. "What… do you think you're doing, Potter?"

"You want her," Albus said, a bit more bravely than he felt in the face of the Prefect, who was considerably larger than he, "you have to go through me."

"Do you not see this badge?" Temple asked, pulling a pinch of his robes outward as if his Prefect insignia wasn't gleaming very obviously right in Albus's face.

"Gallopin' gorgons! What's all the noise?" a gruff but friendly-sounding voice joined the conversation. Temple fell into shadow and his mouth opened slightly. He and Albus both looked up. A wild-haired mountain of a man had appeared, seeming to eclipse the very sun with his sheer mass. Temple was no small lad – still, he looked like little more than an insect next to this newcomer. "Temple, is it? Yeh've saved my seat, right? Luc-er… Professor Wenster let yeh know?"

Temple looked a bit stuck for a second. Either Professor Wenster had _not_ let him know, or he had simply forgotten. He looked around for a moment –

"You two!" he shouted, making Gilbert Reed and another first year boy whose name Albus didn't remember, jump. "You're in Professor Hagrid's spot. Budge up a bit."

Reed and the other young boy caught sight of Hagrid. Both of their jaws dropped and they did as told.

"While you're here," Temple mentioned as Hagrid sat down (Albus heard the entire bench creak awfully), "we've got a bit of an issue."

"What's the problem?" Hagrid asked.

"Well…" Temple rounded on Albus and the others. "This girl here behind Potter… I don't recognize her and I don't think she belongs in this section. The rule is that students from different Houses can not interact unless in class or with a Professor present and supervising them…"

"Well, I'm present now," Hagrid said. "I'm supervisin'. So rules say it's not a problem, right?"

Temple's lips pursed and moved all over the place.

"Move along, then," Hagrid suggested. "Or, better yet, sit down and enjoy the match. Yeh look all wound up and tense."

Temple opted for the latter, and started back up the stairs, muttering something about Wenster having a soft spot.

" 'Lo, Albus. Who's yer—" Hagrid started warmly. Albus felt a weight on his neck as someone put their chin there. Hagrid smiled. " _Oh_. Alrigh', that makes a lot more sense. Thought yeh looked familiar…"

Albus finally turned to look his sister in the eye. Almost immediately, she leaned into his side and closed her arms around him with almost rib-splitting force.

"Have you been alright?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she answered – but it was clear by her refusal to pull her ear out of his chest that she had missed him quite a bit. Another groan erupted from the Gryffindor section – Ravenclaw had scored again.

"Oh, great," Albus heard someone comment. "Our new Keeper's rubbish."

"Lily," Rowan uttered – rather hesitantly, as if he knew he was interrupting something. Lily finally detached himself from Albus and turned toward him. "You said Brynne told you to come look for me?"

"Well," Lily answered. "Not exactly. She just said that you'd be the one to talk to if I ever wanted to get a message to Al. You two know each other?"

"N-not like that," Rowan immediately stammered, a bit too defensively. Lily, however, didn't appear to be thrown off at all. "We're—we're friends. Just friends. Well, not 'just' friends, but that's a whole other… not that way, though."

Rowan didn't meet eyes with either of the Potters through any of this uncharacteristic rambling.

"Did something happen?" Lily asked curiously.

"Never you mind that," answered Rowan, suddenly terse. But then, a glaze of realization washed over his eyes for a second. "What did she tell you about me?"

"That you lived with her family for a while last summer," Lily replied, obviously curious as to why Rowan was acting so oddly.

Rowan conceded with a nod and, for some reason, appeared relieved. "That's the long and short of it." Still, it looked like there was something on his mind. Lily seemed to be trying to extract that something with her eyes. Rowan wouldn't look directly at her, though. Finally, either to change the subject or because he realized he'd been meaning to do so all along, he stood and, shifting his way past Albus and Lily, arrived at the stairs. "Professor Hagrid?"

"Ah, you're, erm…" Hagrid seemed to recognize him. "Dominic, righ'?"

"Rowan… sir," Rowan answered with badly disguised annoyance. Apparently, that happened quite a bit. "My dad was named Dominic."

"Righ', righ'…" Hagrid muttered abashedly. "Sorry abou' that… I taught 'im, y'know, while he was here. One o' the best students I ever had. Yeh look just like 'im. So, what d'yeh need? Is the work I gave you lot on bowtruckles givin' yeh trouble?"

"No, sir, I've finished it already, actually," Rowan admitted.

Hagrid chuckled. "Is that so? I'll be lookin' forward to it on Monday. So, what is it?"

"You know Professor Wenster well, right?" asked Rowan.

"Known 'im since we were boys," Hagrid answered. " 'Course, I knew 'im as Lucan back then, mind. We came inter Hogwarts together. One o' the few friends I had from back in those days."

"Together?" Rowan uttered, astonished.

"Sure did," Hagrid answered. "We were both Sorted into Gryffindor. When… when the incident happened third year…"

"You mean, when Tom Riddle, also known as Voldemort, opened the Chamber of Secrets and framed you for the resulting attacks," Rowan corrected him rather bluntly.

From here, Albus could barely perceive Hagrid's mouth, behind a cascade of greying brown beard, set into a firm line for a moment. "Yeh've read up, I see. Well, when all that… when all that happened, he was the only one that took up fer me, other 'n Dumbledore. Me getting expelled never sat right with Lucan, an' he was suspicious of Riddle an' his friends from then on. He could never pin anything on 'em, though – not with as careful as Riddle was, and not with as much as Dippett had taken a shine to 'im…"

A breeze blew. Or maybe that was just Hagrid sighing very heavily.

"I've tried m'best ter put it all behind me," he said soberly. "But I guess, fer some people… no one believin' yeh gets hard ter take after a while… makes yeh angry an' bitter."

A roar erupted from around Albus. Gryffindor had scored at last; but Albus couldn't bring himself to celebrate.

"Hey, Albus," Lily tried to get his attention. "Al-buuuuuuus… Sylvia just scored, you know."

"Oh, was it?" Albus queried. "Honestly, I wasn't watching…"

Lily frowned. "Did you have a row with her?"

"Not _her_ , no…" replied Albus. Then, he raised his hand and mussed his sister's hair. Normally, she whined and said she hated it through the smile on her face, but today, she didn't duck away or even try to resist. "Don't worry about it."

"Where's Rose?" Lily probed. Albus was almost surprised it had taken Lily so long to notice their cousin's absence.

He grimaced. "It's a long story…"

Lily let off a dramatic sigh and hunched her shoulders. "I was hoping to see her."

She folded her arms.

"These rules are bollocks."

Albus put an arm around her shoulder.

"Sure are."

 **Brynne**

"Well… he looks alright…" Kadric Howell remarked, peering up through his Omnioculars. A second later, a mix of sounds rang out around them, punctuated by taunting barks of laughter and someone even shouting, _'Sod off, Potter!'_ Kadric, at the same time, winced. "Well, up until that happened. Don't you want to look?"

"I'm fine," answered Brynne, a bit impatiently. Kadric Howell tilted his head in an expression… of disbelief. (The fact that Kadric actually had expressions to begin with, was something Brynne was just recently getting used to.)

"Take a look. Honestly, I don't mind," he said, removing his eyes from the Omnioculars, an annoying dash of 'you-know-you-want-to' awareness in his tone of voice. After a pause in which Brynne said nothing, Kadric queried. "So, why did you bother coming all the way out here if you weren't going to watch Potter play?"

"I thought that would've been obvious," remarked the girl on Brynne's right. With a twitch of her head, Lena Urquhart tried to shake a few rogue coils of black hair out of her eyes. When they wouldn't go, she reached up and moved them with her hand. "It's better to talk than the castle."

"How do you figure that? Everyone's out here," Kadric countered. "Well… mostly everyone."

" _Except_ for Professor Wenster. He stayed back with Malcolm," Brynne pointed out. "So…"

She glanced at Kadric. He shook his head solemnly.

"Nothing?" Brynne questioned, grimacing.

"Well…" Kadric paused. "I got close _enough_. She's taken to following Malcolm around when he's not teaching classes, which is… well, bad."

"You think so?" asked Brynne. Kadric's response was the confused face of one dealing with a person who was failing to acknowledge the obvious. "Malcolm's a lot of things, but he's not thick. If she's spying on him, he knows. But what can he do to her that doesn't make him look like he has something to hide?"

"It's not worth the trouble," contended Kadric. "He'll be extra careful covering his tracks if he knows he's being watched. That's why _we_ haven't bothered with him, right?"

"I don't understand something," Lena interjected. "If…"

She trailed off, almost as if afraid to speak – unusual, given her tendency for bluntness. "Go on," Brynne encouraged her. It bothered her a bit that Lena and Kadric were still uncomfortable speaking their minds around her. She didn't deserve, warrant, or even want that sort of reverence, honestly. She wanted friends, not followers – more like it was before….

"I know what you've said about Malcolm," Lena replied cautiously. "And it's not that I don't believe you. But if he really wants to put an end to the problem, why not join up with him to get things done?"

"Lena, we've been over this already," Kadric replied for Brynne, which also annoyed her. She didn't like doing all the talking, but she didn't like being spoken for, either. Neither of those really happened when you were dealing with equals. Now, growing annoyed with herself for having allowed herself to become annoyed in the first place, Brynne's already somber mood was turning sour indeed. Nevertheless, she let Kadric keep speaking. That was what equals did, after all. And she was the one that always said he didn't speak his mind enough. "Malcolm coming out of this looking like a hero is the worst thing that could possibly happen. His plan is to grab power over the school and he's playing every angle he can."

"But why?" asked Lena. "For all we know, he could have things in mind for the school that aren't so bad – things that Flitwick won't do because he's too set in his ways."

"I seriously doubt that," Kadric disagreed.

"Why? Because Brynne said so?" Lena challenged.

"Are you saying she's lying?" Kadric answered, and for the first time, Brynne could hear a bit of aggression in his voice. "Everything else she's said has happened almost exactly—"

"I'm not saying anyone's lying," Lena interrupted. "Just that… she could be mistaken. And it could be costing us time."

She glanced at Brynne after saying this, almost as if ashamed.

"You said it yourself, right?" Lena asked her, now not sounding as confident. "It's all a theory."

Brynne took a moment to gather her thoughts – or at least a few of them – into a group of words that would make something resembling sense to a mind other than hers. "I don't have enough proof to be a hundred percent sure," she admitted. "But I'm sure enough that I'd rather not take the risk. If Malcolm's the type of man I believe he is, he'll step in and do something about this only when he has the most to gain. He wasn't preaching about cooperation and togetherness until people started getting hurt."

"Not Malcolm, then…" Lena conceded. "What about Professor Ambrose?"

"Not happening," Kadric replied a bit cynically. "Wenster's forced his hand. He can't afford to look weak now."

Kadric was right, Brynne thought sadly. Professor Ambrose was a good man, but perhaps not a leader best suited for conflict. His desire to do right seemed to battle constantly with the wish to remain as inoffensive as possible. Perhaps it was the old Slytherin reputation for conniving ambition that he wanted so desperately to avoid; perhaps it was because he had never been a popular choice for Head of Slytherin House and was fully aware of that fact. And perhaps (he had been one of her favorites, so she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt) he thought he could be more effective over the long term if he made few waves and didn't get himself sacked. Whatever it was, he would not be able to offer much help beyond making sure not to make things worse.

At last, Brynne opened her mouth to comment. But her first few words could not possibly carry over the obviously partisan Slytherin crowd voicing their disapproval that Gryffindor had scored another goal. She waited for them to quiet down, which took a moment. Then, when she was sure Kadric and Lena could hear her, she spoke:

"If you're waiting for a savior, you're in the wrong place," she said. " _No one is coming._ No one believes it needs to be done enough. Maybe some of them believe it _can't_ be done. We're dealing with a problem from years – really, centuries ago… that never got properly solved. It was just swept under the rug and dressed up to look pretty. You can dress up a corpse as pretty as you like, lay it in a coffin with flowers… in the end, it's still a corpse. It's going to keep decaying and, unless you bury it, it's going to smell. And our corpse has been rotting for a thousand years. I mean to bury it. If that's too much for either of you…"

" _No_ ," Lena blurted out, almost desperately. " _No._ I…" She paused for a moment. "I can't now. I'm too far in."

She seemed only to realize it in the moment – and, honestly, it appeared painful. She bit her lip hard, the one of her eyes Brynne could see wetly reflecting her sights as she stared out at the pitch, or perhaps across it (where the Gryffindor section had just gone into an uproar)

Brynne saw Lena's jaw set.

"He's got it," Lena said, lowering her voice. "I was able to slip it to him after Defence yesterday."

Brynne, not having expected this so soon, had to attempt to keep a straight face. Almost involuntarily, though, she felt her eyes widen. "What did he say?" she asked, trying to ignore the sudden, strange flutter in her belly.

"He said he'd try," Lena replied, a conspicuously fragile glimmer of hope in her tearful eyes as hers and Brynne's finally met.

"Well… that's a damn sight better than a 'no,'" reasoned Kadric.

Lena nodded much more vigorously than normal, trying not to succumb to tears. Brynne saw Lena's hand and took it.

"Look at me," Brynne implored. Lena did. "We're close. We're close to getting them back."

"I'm scared," answered Lena shakily. "What if he doesn't come back? What if he really hates me now?"

"Which one?" Brynne queried.

"Either of them."

"I don't think that'll happen… but even if it did, it's better to know than wonder," Brynne answered. "You'd get through it somehow. I believe in you. Alright?"

It was such a dumb thing, Brynne thought… as if her belief for _anybody_ counted for much of anything. But just in case… just in case it did, Brynne had to make sure Lena heard it. Suddenly looking much younger than her years, Lena nodded.

"Alright."

Just then a roar erupted throughout the stadium. A shrill whistle split the air about the same time a great, shapeless lump began its descent toward the ground. The referee followed on his broom, continuing with his whistle blasts, but whoever or whatever was spiraling downward was not heeding him at all.

"On second thought, Kadric, can I see those?" Brynne asked a bit nervously. Kadric silently proffered the Omnioculars and Brynne peered through them, hoping that the person on the other end wasn't whom she feared it was….


	11. Chapter 11: Convergence, Pt 1

Chapter 11: A Necessary and Fateful Convergence, Pt. 1

James saw it developing almost before it happened.

He and the Gryffindors were on offense again, with a chance to take the lead after an initial deficit. He and Sylvia had scored a goal each. Asher Rodney, meanwhile, was harassing one of Ravenclaw's Beaters, Donaghan Craig, blocking his flight paths and serving as a general nuisance. He was freelancing; James knew this and Freddy probably knew it, too. Given the results, though, they weren't going to complain about it just yet. Rodney took himself out of the offense, sure; but he also took Craig away from Sylvia and James. McFadden, as good as he was, couldn't out-beat both Freddy and Desmond by himself. Sylvia and James were able to fly mostly unmolested to the hoops and tie the score.

Of course, a side effect of this was that Craig's simmering annoyance was inching closer to a dangerous boiling point the longer the match went.

Finally, Rodney misjudged Craig and the two bumped in midair. Correctly, Arbiter Thomas called a foul on Rodney – but by then, it was too late. Craig, at least from where James could see, took a swing at Rodney, either with his fist or perhaps with his bat. Thankfully, he missed, but Rodney retaliated. The two ended up locked together and Craig's bat came free as they spiraled down to the ground in a tangle of brooms and robes.

Arbiter Thomas was currently descending after them, blowing shrill but fruitless blasts on his whistle in an attempt to get the two to break up. Finally, his patience ran out; he drew his wand and aimed at the two boys.

A jet of light hit the tangled mass and broke them apart just in time for them to right themselves before slamming into the ground.

Freddy had hovered up next to James and he did _not_ look happy.

"This is gonna be bad," he muttered, throwing himself into a dive to reach the ground. James followed him.

What they and the other players found when they landed, was Arbiter Thomas physically standing between both boys, barring each's way to the other. Shockingly, of the two of them, the older and much bigger Ravenclaw Beater looked to have come off slightly worse. Rodney had evidently landed some sort of blow, as blood was dribbling from Craig's lip. Rodney was obviously not done, either; the arbiter had to physically push him back a couple of times while Rodney shouted, "Not so hard now, are you?" He called Craig something quite rude, at which point Arbiter Thomas shouted, " _Enough!_ Red, eleven—" He called the color and jersey number representing Asher Rodney while pointing in his direction. Then, with an airward flourish of his finger and arm, he shouted, " _You're gone!_ "

The incompatible mixture of vindicated cheers and shouts of outrage rained down on the pitch from above them.

Then, quickly, Arbiter Thomas turned toward Donaghan Craig and Cordelia Byrne (who was standing next to him at this point) and performed the same motion – "Blue, five – _out!_ "

More cheers and jeers, their relative positions and volumes now seemingly reversed.

"What?" Cordelia questioned. "Why? Rodney's the one that bloodied his lip!"

"I called a fair foul," Arbiter Thomas reasoned. "Your man went at red's nut with his club. You know as well as I do that's an automatic ejection. Can't do that. Not in any ruleset on any level of Quidditch."

Cordelia rolled her eyes and then glared at Craig. Pointing vaguely in the directly of Rodney (who was departing the pitch without argument), Craig started, "He—"

But Cordelia was clearly not in the mood. Very obviously trying to keep her patience and barely managing to pull it off, she responded flatly, "Just… go."

Craig yanked his broom up off the ground forcefully and walked back toward the showers by himself.

"He needs suspended," someone behind James commented.

"What?" squawked Cordelia.

"'What?' That's the second time in as many matches he's gone out of his way to try and injure one of our players!" Desmond McLaggen yelled, walking in the direction of the Ravenclaws.

" _Cool it_ , _Mac_." Freddy got to him early and held him back.

Arbiter Thomas was slightly apologetic in his expression as he responded. "Not in my power. You'd have to take that to his Head of House or higher."

"Both Ravenclaws," Desmond stated cynically. "So fat chance of _that_ happening."

"Well—" Arbiter Thomas grimaced. With a sigh, he obviously decided not to get into the debate. "Captains, set your new lineups. And _cut it off_ here – any more funny business and you'll hit the showers early along with the offender."

Freddy seemed unconcerned – Rodney had gone a bit rogue, after all – but Cordelia's reaction to this was a bit comical to watch. She opened her mouth and made a wild gesture to protest, but stopped midway through, palmed her face, and kneaded the bridge of her nose. Taking a deep breath to try to calm herself, she said, "Lennox, grab your bat. Martell, you're in at Chaser."

Martell stood out in the Ravenclaw lineup. Black and visibly over six feet, he was nearly as tall as Arbiter Thomas and every bit as lanky. James guessed that, as he was a reserve, he wasn't Lennox's equal on a broom. At least, he hoped as much.

If he was, this was going to be a pain.

"That's Lennox going from Chaser to Beater, Nicks coming in at Chaser. You get all that?" Cordelia Byrne asked Arbiter Thomas.

"Yep," he replied. Then he turned to Freddy. "Weasley?"

Freddy's nostrils flared. "Gold's in at Chaser."

Arbiter Thomas nodded. "Penalty shot to each team, then we play on. And keep it clean!"

As the teams separated, James strode to catch up with Freddy, who was grumbling to himself. "I'm such an ass. I should've reined him in."

"Good luck with that," McLaggen commented from Freddy's other side. "You knew it was gonna be personal from the off."

"Doesn't matter," Scorpius, in typical Scorpius fashion, intoned, his thin mouth set in a firm line. "He put what he wanted above the needs of the team."

"You don't understand anything, do you?" McLaggen scoffed. "Have you ever fancied a girl, Malfoy?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" snapped Scorpius, now looking uncomfortable.

"Yes," Sylvia, who loved needling McLaggen, remarked. " _Please_ share with us your wisdom, Mr. 'Expert'."

McLaggen had a very un-McLaggen-like reaction to this. He scowled and looked away from her, but the sudden flush of pink on his face was obvious to James even at a distance. "I-I never said I was an 'expert'. I-I've heard… things. Listen, I'm not saying what he did wasn't a bad idea, it's just…"

He trailed off.

"Well, it gets Craig out of the way, right?" Sylvia queried.

"There's that," Freddy answered. Judging by his facial expression, though, that fact wasn't much comfort for him. Angling his head toward Alphonse Gold, he remarked, "You're going to have to take the shot since you're coming in for Rodney."

"Y-yeah. Fine." Gold, a second year, didn't get to play very often as the team's youngest reserve last year. In fact, if James remembered correctly, this was the first match he'd actually gotten into. No wonder he was nervous.

Those nerves showed, unfortunately, when the teams took to the air again and he took his shot. It went wide of its mark and the Ravenclaw Keeper, Callahan, didn't even bother moving to defend anything.

To make matters worse, since Craig was a Beater that had been fouled, the Ravenclaws could have their pick of who they wanted to take their penalty shot. Cordelia elected to do it herself. A skilled feint sent Brookstanton pealing off in the wrong direction, and Cordelia put the Quaffle through the hoop right behind him. What small joy James got from knowing he could give Brookstanton grief about the play later, was tempered by the fact that Gryffindor was, once again, down a goal.

Even Freddy didn't do a great job hiding his disappointment. His shoulders slouched, but for only a second. Everybody had to get back on task, and most of the Gryffindors did so only after Sylvia sped past them with the Quaffle under her arm. It turned out to be a bad idea. One of the Bludgers clipped her broom. It wasn't a direct hit, but it did send her into a roll, which made her drop the Quaffle. Davies from Ravenclaw grabbed it. James scanned the pitch. Cordelia Byrne was flying nearby, looking at Davies, calling for the Quaffle. Neither of the girls saw him.

James made his move and, sure enough, by the time Davies wound up to throw the pass, he was between Cordelia and the ball. He reached out, plucked the ill-advised pass from the air with one hand, and shot like a missile toward Ravenclaw's hoops. As he approached, Callahan bobbed around on his broom from hoop to hoop uncertainly. Something whirred on James's right. Instinctively, he dove a bit, ducking his head as well, just in case. After a split-second passed and he knew he wasn't about to get his skull cracked open, he looked around just in time to see Lennox on his left, striking a Bludger with his club. Behind him, though, he saw Sylvia careening around the edge of the pitch. She had a headstart, but Marjery Davies was tailing her, and with a faster broom, gaining ground. Lennox didn't see this, though; and if both Beaters were focused on James, then….

James slung the ball around Lennox, who wasn't ready. It was far out in front of Sylvia and it looked like James had missed his target by a mile….

Except he hadn't.

The ball spun back, just as he'd planned. Sylvia flew right into the ball and, a bit surprised, nearly dropped it. By the time she had control, she was feet away from a wide-open hoop. She let it go and cleared herself, and the ball sailed through for an easy goal.

As the Gryffindor section roared and the goal was announced, James couldn't hold himself back from a fist pump.

"Whoa!" Alphonse Gold, who was a bit late to the action, shouted from behind James. "That was a _wicked_ bender! Where'd you learn that?"

"I'll teach it to you later – watch Nicks!" James pointed, as Cordelia and the Ravenclaws were coming back on offense. _Knowing my luck_ , he thought to himself, _I'll never be able to bring it off again._

As the game wore on, though, even James was surprised by how evenly matched they were. Neither team was able to pull ahead by more than ten points. After an hour and a half that felt like much longer, Gryffindor was actually up by a goal, ninety to eighty…

And then, in a moment, the game ended.

Going for the Snitch, the two seekers collided in what probably could have been a foul called on Rohan Lynch. Alas, it was not, and Lynch came up with the Snitch.

It was strange; James didn't like the idea of playing Seeker, and he certainly wasn't ever going to suggest that he could do the job better than Malfoy could. But if there was one thing he hated about playing Chaser, it was that the Chasers didn't have much impact on whether the team won or lost a game. They weren't wholly immaterial. Most Quidditch cups, the Hogwarts Cup included, placed teams based on some combination of record and total points scored.

That wasn't much comfort today, though. They had lost, and that created a leaden feeling in his stomach that wasn't going away. Solemnly, each team lined up its ten players for sportsmanlike handshakes. Davies and Cordelia Byrne had especially stiff ones for James, probably more to make a point than anything. Cordelia, though, had a very strong grip anyway, which certainly explained a lot. Nevan McFadden was big but seemingly gentle on the ground. Callahan subtly tried to break his hand, which James felt he should have seen coming; he'd made the Ravenclaw Keeper look silly on a couple of occasions.

Louis was last in line. He shook James's hand firmly and looked a bit downcast for someone whose team had just won the match. It was only as he was starting to walk away that James realized his younger cousin and smuggled something into his palm. It looked like a tiny piece of parchment.

"Whoa – what's this?" James turned to query.

"Don't know," Louis said. "A girl in my year asked me to give it to you. Secret admirer note, maybe?" he suggested, managing a smirk that suggested perhaps some sort of firsthand experience. Then, his face turned thoughtful, as if he'd just remembered something. "Then again, she was from Slytherin… not saying you wouldn't have any admirers in Slytherin, it's just that… well, Lily's in Slytherin, right? Might be from her."

It _did_ seem like the sort of small-scale mischief Lily would engage in, James thought. Maybe, though, she just missed him. They hadn't gotten to speak beyond an occasional wave in weeks.

"Whatever it is, it's probably important," Louis reasoned. "Try not to lose it."

Louis started to walk away, but James called after him. "Lou!"

Louis turned around.

"Don't get too down on yourself," James advised him. "I didn't play much my first game, either, and I came out alright."

Louis managed a half-smile before turning to walk away.

James investigated the small piece of parchment in his hand. It was a square, maybe an inch lengthwise and a little less than that in width. Black lines striped it. It looked weirdly like a full sheet of parchment in miniature…

 _Probably because it is,_ James thought, pocketing it. He went toward the locker room, trying to remember the last time he had practiced an Engorgement Charm.

James hadn't been expecting the locker room to be a very happy place after the loss. Asher Rodney, by the time the rest of the team arrived, had evidently used a locker as a stand-in for Donaghan Craig's jaw, given that it was sporting a significant dent. The news of the loss did nothing for his temper.

James, at his locker, cringed when he heard the cry of "How? How could you let Lynch beat you to the Snitch?" because he _knew_ it wasn't gonna end well. "You tired? That it? Another late night patrolling with your stupid Godric's Guard mates?"

"Stop it, Rodney," Freddy warned.

"No, go on – I'm interested to hear this," Scorpius cut across him. "Maybe _you_ should've played Seeker instead, since it's so easy. Wait a second – you couldn't have, because you were busy getting ejected like an idiot and weren't on the pitch to help us at all."

"I did what nobody else had the balls to do," Rodney defended himself.

"You _got in the way_ ," Scorpius snapped. His teeth were grit. "I had the Snitch in my sight and Lynch was nowhere bloody close. Then you pulled your stunt and we had to stop play to keep you and Craig from murdering each other."

A few seconds of silence, and the short disagreement appeared to be over – until Rodney, at his locker, murmured one word:

" _Convenient."_

Scorpius was sitting next to James, facing the lockers with his back to Rodney just as James was. When James looked over at him, Scorpius's gray eyes had assumed a truly dangerous-looking blank stare.

"Are you calling me a liar?" Scorpius stood and opened his locker. "Let me guess – the Malfoys before me did a lot of lying, so I must be a liar, too?"

"I never _said_ that," Rodney answered loudly. "But, now that you mention it—"

A horrible clangor rang through the small room as Scorpius slammed his locker shut harder than James thought humanly possible. "I'M NOT MY GRANDFATHER! And you know what?"

He finally turned around.

"You're never going to be yours, either."

James hardly had time to parse the full impact of Scorpius's statement when Rodney lunged at Scorpius. James, already much too close to the action, leapt out of the way – which was fortunate, because Rodney soon had Scorpius pinned to the row of lockers right where James had been sitting. The area got crowded very quickly, with McLaggen and Freddy both working to separate the boys. There were a lot of limbs flying around and James thought he might have seen Rodney throw a punch. In the end, the helpers succeeded, and the two were safely pinned away from each other, when –

" _Everte Statum!"_

A flash of silver lit the small room and then there was a deafening noise like a cannon going off, followed by the awful, metal-crunchy sound of Asher Rodney slamming back-first into the lockers on his side of the room. Covering his head with his arms, Rodney slumped to the floor in a heap.

"STOP!" Freddy shouted. " _GET OUT!"_

Freddy shoved Scorpius toward the doorway. He was apoplectic; James hadn't seen him that angry since the Valentine's Social two years ago. That said, he, unlike Scorpius, hadn't managed to produce a wand seemingly from nowhere – so, despite his rage, he could advance no further than the end of the outstretched wooden stick in Scorpius's hand.

"Get out," Freddy repeated. An awful idea, James thought, because Scorpius, judging by his facial expression, had well and truly snapped, and looked ready to curse anyone else that got too close.

"Maybe I should be that bloke you're all so afraid of," Scorpius said. "You bastards obviously don't know the difference anyway, right?"

And with one last venomous scan of the room, Scorpius stormed out.

Rodney, it turned out, was mostly alright, although extremely sore. But he gathered his things and left the locker room by himself, long before Freddy's speech to the team, which was uncharacteristically toothless and essentially amounted to "we were good, but they were better". The rest of the team filed out slowly, until only James and Freddy were left. Freddy didn't say much of anything on his way up to the castle, either. It was obvious he wasn't in the mood to talk – which was fine, because James really wasn't either. Murphy was at the landing just outside the tower.

"Rough day," he said somberly, looking at the large, round window. It appeared that even the weather disapproved of how things had gone; not long after the match ended, it had started raining. Hard.

James could only let out a sigh and approach the window. There was just enough room for him to sit in the windowsill, right up against it, so he did. The window itself was cold; October rains in Scotland were not typically warm rains.

"That's putting it mildly," James said. "I get the feeling we've lost at least one of our players for the year."

"Whoa," Murphy uttered, angling his head. "Somebody get hurt?"

"Malfoy and Rodney had a huge row after the match," James explained. "Well, fight, really. Each one blamed the other for costing us the game… and it basically all went to hell from there."

There was a long, rainy silence.

"Eff this year," James finally muttered. "The whole damn thing. Not even Quidditch is going right…"

The last thing put a lump in his throat as he thought about it; James wasn't entirely prepared for it but managed to swallow it down with a long stare out of the window.

"Albus get back alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, he's fine," Murphy replied. "Lily was with him during the match." As if he knew James would look at him and make a face of surprise in reaction to this news, Murphy didn't break stride: "Temple caught her and started giving them trouble, so I went and got some help."

"Help?" James repeated.

"I think Hagrid was happy to see them," Murphy remarked. With a smirk, he added, "You lot haven't been keeping up your tea appointments. At least Albus has got Care of Magical Creatures this year."

James couldn't smile, but he felt comforted. Hagrid certainly wouldn't have let anybody harass Albus and Lily or keep them from being together, no matter what the rules were. Murphy had made the best move, as always.

"I appreciate it," James said thickly. "Don't know if I ever said that, but…"

"Oh, god, don't get mushy on me, mate," Murphy chuckled. "All part of the plan, right?"

"Plan?" answered James with a bit of a laugh. He knew what Murphy meant – he just couldn't believe he was still going on about it.

"The plan?" repeated Murphy. "You, me, Magical Law Enforcement, a hundred years of peace in Britain, that whole bit?"

It was half dream, half in-joke – lofty grown-up goals from a pair of twelve-year-old boys who knew next to nothing about the world. James was going to become the Head Auror one day, after his father retired. Murphy was going to rise through the ranks of Hit Wizards and have the career his own father never got to finish. Together, they were going to make Britain safe, put down any would-be Dark wizard threats, and give their home country a century of uninterrupted peace, the likes of which hadn't been seen since before Grindelwald.

But that was when they were twelve, could still dream, and were slightly stupid.

"A hundred years of peace in Britain…" James muttered, shaking his head. "Can we try a hundred _days_ of peace at Hogwarts? A hundred _hours_ , at least? That's about a week, right?"

"Just over four days," Murphy calculated with a maddening nonchalance.

"Nerd," James teased, chuckling cynically. "Why didn't you take Arithmancy again?"

"Because Hit Wizards don't need O.W.L.s in Arithmancy," Murphy said simply. "And because Vector's a mad old bat."

"Still feel like it'd be more interesting than History somehow," James pointed out. Murphy laughed in agreement.

"So Louis is on the Ravenclaw team," he commented. "That's a surprise. He always came off to me as a pretty boy that wouldn't want his hair messed up."

"Like you, you mean?" James joked.

"Yeah. Sure," Murphy deadpanned. "So what did you two talk about?"

"Well, he was kinda put out that they didn't let him into the match," James recalled. "He gave me a…"

And, for the first time in several hours, James remembered it. He began fumbling around in his shirt and the pockets of his jeans, fearing that he might have left it in his robes, which were in his locker, which was at the bottom of Hogwarts's hills on the other side of the grounds. Fortunately, when he changed out of his Quidditch uniform, he had somehow remembered to bring the tiny square of parchment with him. He held it in his palm.

"This. He said it was a message, but…"

"A message?" queried Murphy. "From who?"

"Not sure," James admitted. "I think it someone's put a Shrinking Charm on it, so… _damn._ My wand's back in the dormitory. Have you got yours on you?"

"Yeah," Murphy replied, producing his wand. " _En—"_

"Whoa, _whoa,_ " James stopped him, leaping from the windowsill and replacing himself with the parchment. "I'll just set it down."

"You don't trust my aim by now? Shame, mate," Murphy chuckled. Pointing at the small square of parchment, he incanted, " _Engorgio."_

An eldritch warble accompanied the spell as the parchment in question stretched to the size of a full leaf. A bit cautiously, James approached it and picked it up. As he sat down again to read it, he immediately noticed several things.

The paper itself was messy. Its texture was uneven, as if it had been wet and then dried in several spots. A corner was missing, and the edge near where the corner would have been was black and brown. Either there had been an accident or whoever wrote the letter had considered destroying it before changing their mind. Lastly, most of the writing – several paragraphs worth – had been scratched through so thoroughly that it was illegible.

What was left was near the bottom, a few sentences.

" _If you haven't forgotten me, I think it's time we saw each other,"_ he read. " _If that's what you want, I'll be at the Room of Requirement Sunday at noon."_

It wasn't signed. That didn't matter. Even if the handwriting was so quickly and unevenly scribbled that it was nearly unrecognizable (had the hand that wrote it been shaking?), the message only made any sort of sense coming from one person.

James was blank for a moment, and it frightened him. Surely, he thought, he should have been feeling _something_.

"'If you haven't forgotten me'?" he finally repeated. "Why would—"

James knew, of course, he realized as his stomach sank.

"We're going, obviously," Murphy said.

"Tomorrow?" James murmured, his mouth dry. "That's barely any time to get ready..."

"Ready? For what?" Murphy asked.

"For what?" replied James. "I have no idea what I'm going to say."

At this, Murphy chuckled, shaking his head.

"What's so funny?" James bristled.

"It's mad," his best friend replied. "You act like you're meeting her for the first time or something. You've known her for two years. What's so different now?"

"You know what's different." James fumed.

But Murphy shrugged. "But that's not really 'different', is it?"

James frowned and looked away from Murphy.

"You know…" Murphy started again, this time a bit more hesitantly. "I've got a theory. It's a mad theory, but…"

"What's that?" James asked.

"This whole… situation between Gryffindor and Slytherin…" Murphy reasoned. "Have you ever thought that maybe you and Brynne might be the key to stopping it?"

James smiled mirthlessly and, in fact, had to fight down the urge to laugh. It was nothing against Murphy. He meant well; he almost always did. It was just that the idea itself was so… well, _ridiculous._ If he could bend the entire world to his will like that… this whole thing would have never happened in the first place.

"No, I haven't," he finally said. "Honestly, the more I've thought about it, the more I wonder if the last thing Hogwarts needs is someone like me. We're looking for peace, aren't we? I'm a fighter."

"Yeah. Exactly," Murphy replied simply. "So are the Aurors. So's your dad. Any peace we've ever gotten or kept is because people had the balls to fight the right way for the right things."

"I'm not leading anyone else into danger," said James. But Murphy's face was contorting even as James spoke—

" _Damn it,_ will you _stop it_ with the guilty act?!" he snapped. "You can't control anything doing nothing. Things are going to keep moving with or without you – probably somewhere no one wants them to go. And Brynne… well, you know her better than I do. And _I_ know she hasn't stopped. She won't stop. She'll _never_ stop until she knows it's over. And if she's got to do it alone – if you _let_ her do it alone… you might try to meet her on the other side and realize there's nothing left of her."

The last sentence struck James like a stunning blow to the chest. His senses failed for a moment. He looked straight at Murphy, but then noticed something moving in the background. A pair of unmistakable green eyes were staring back at him. Their owner had been almost in mid-stride.

"Albus?"

A girl's voice called and a girl followed it up the steps. James recognized her instantly, although she had long since changed out of her Quidditch uniform to a raincoat, jeans, and boots. A knit cap in Gryffindor scarlet held her dark hair away from her face. Her brown eyes darted around and settled on James.

"Oh. Hi," Sylvia said, the lack of wind in her proverbial sails obvious by the tone of her voice.

"Hey," James replied awkwardly.

"You haven't seen Scorpius at all, have you?" she queried.

James shook his head. He saw a bit of the air go out of Albus's posture. Sylvia, though, reached over to Albus and gently pulled on his arm without saying a word. Albus glanced again at James. His mouth said nothing but his green eyes delivered a sad discourse. He hated this; he hated all of it. He was trying to put on a strong front so no one would worry, but he was obviously exhausted at holding the façade together. If someone, _anyone_ could do _anything…_

He and Sylvia departed down the stairs, leaving James to reflect on all that Albus had said without saying.

"I have to, don't I?" he muttered, somewhat to himself. "If there's even the smallest chance that it could help…"

"No," Murphy disagreed, walking over to the wall next to the windowsill where James was seated and leaning back against it. "You don't _have_ to do anything. But you don't want to do _nothing_ , do you?"

James stared down at his hands. Murphy was right.

"What happened?" James finally asked. "With you and Serra? You never told me."

Silence. Of course Murphy wasn't going to give up the goods now, James thought. He hadn't for most of the year.

"I chucked her."

James looked up. Murphy wasn't meeting his eye. James didn't dare press the issue by asking any more questions; this was as much as Murphy had talked about the issue since it had happened.

"Doesn't make sense, does it?" Murphy went on with a joyless chuckle. "I figured you'd be pissed at me, as much as you went through last year."

James frowned. "What's done is done, but… why?"

"I never felt like I'd earned it," Murphy answered after a while. "I know, it sounds stupid… no, it's stupid. It _is._ It's completely daft. That's not how any of this works."

James was confused. "What?"

Murphy shook his head. "It's one of those things you just have to figure out for yourself. I can't really explain it to you and have you understand it," he said.

James stood at last and took a deep breath.

"That makes no sense, mate."

"I know," Murphy replied simply. "But it will."

 **Albus**

"Every time he decides to go missing, it's raining," Sylvia groused, her voice actually barely audible over the driving squall. Rain was coming down (and sideways) so forcefully that Albus felt himself dampening even in the process of working an Impervius Charm. They'd just learned them recently and this was rather a trial by fire… or by water. "Why'd Tommy decide to send _us_ anyway? Doesn't he know you two haven't been getting on?"

"We're still the closest thing to friends that he has," Albus replied.

"Really?" Sylvia asked. "Temple could've sent some of his bloody goons, right? Vaisey wouldn't do it?"

"Scorpius and Vaisey don't like each other. You know that," Albus countered, trying not to sound too scolding. "Even if they're on the same 'side'… whatever that is."

"Where do you think he would have gone?" asked Sylvia.

Albus raised a hand to shield his eyes at least somewhat from the torrent. A high tower with a spiraling staircase was not far away.

"We might as well check the Owlery first," he suggested.

"I'm going to have to wring my clothes out after this," griped Sylvia. "When we find him, can I kick him in the throat?"

"Probably not," Albus deadpanned.

"'Probably not'?" she repeated. "Means 'maybe so'…"

"No."

"You're no fun."

"I'm plenty fun. I just don't think Scorpius is in a great mood to be kicked in the throat."

"But he deserves it."

Albus sighed heavily.

"It was a joke," Sylvia finally reassured him, draping an arm around his neck. Normally, Albus wouldn't have minded for obvious reasons, but today, it was cold, damp, and uncomfortable. Albus squirmed away a bit. Sylvia got the hint, but her face fell.

"Sorry," Albus remarked aimlessly. "About the match, I mean…"

"Well, you know…" Sylvia murmured, managing a smile. "Can't win 'em all. I mean, you _can_ , it's just bloody difficult. I had fun. Didn't get my hair pulled this time, which is an improvement…"

"You've had that happen to you?" Albus queried. They had reached the steps that led up the Owlery tower.

"Oh, yeah," Sylvia said, cringing. "Last year against Hufflepuff. It hurt like hell."

Albus frowned. "Bad things always happen to you when you get too close to Hufflepuffs. Maybe you should stay away from them."

"You might be right," Sylvia mentioned.

They climbed a few more steps.

"You're not sore about losing?" Albus asked.

"Well, I don't _like_ losing," Sylvia answered. "I hate it. But I still get to play, so it's not the end of the world. I'm just glad I'm alive to do it."

"…I am, too. Glad you're alive, I mean."

"Really? That's good. I was starting to wonder."

"Seriously?"

"No." A laugh. "Hell, no. You're…"

"…What?"

"…Never mind."

Lightning flashed blindingly, making Albus flinch. Thunder guttered overhead in booming cracks as if the heavens were breaking.

"This isn't letting up anytime soon, is it…?" Albus muttered, willing himself to climb the stairs more quickly. Somewhat fortunately, the staircase eventually snaked into the tower itself, giving him and Sylvia relief from the downpour. Unfortunately, it was at this point that Albus realized just how _cold_ the owlery was. He gave an involuntary shiver as he crossed the threshold – so much so that he almost failed to hear the voices:

"Well, since you're such an expert, tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do!" somebody snapped.

A gasp from behind Albus indicated that Sylvia had recognized the voice as well, "That's—"

" _Shh_ ," Albus hissed quickly, deciding it was better for him and Sylvia to remain still and not expose themselves too quickly. "He's talking with someone."

"I say, to hell with them," another voice – a girl's – responded carelessly. "To hell with all of them. You don't need them. You don't need to prove anything to them. They want to keep treating you like that, they can find someone else. See how strong their team is without you. I bet they'll be crawling back before long."

"I don't understand you," Scorpius said.

"What's that mean?" the girl's voice asked with a similar flippant tone of voice.

" _You have no friends_ ," Scorpius said, rather bluntly. This was punctuated by a gasp from the girl – or maybe it was a laugh. "Nobody likes you. Everybody thinks you're some sort of… mad dark witch in the making that got another chance she didn't deserve. That doesn't bother you at all?"

"No," the girl replied just as bluntly.

"So how do you manage to bring that off?" Scorpius queried, sounding annoyed.

"That's simple," she answered. "I just realized I had to stop caring."

This time, it was Scorpius's turn to chuckle mirthlessly. "Wish I could do that."

"No, you don't." The girl's answer was immediate, yet her voice shook for the first time when she spoke it. "You deserve better than that."

"Do I?" Scorpius asked cynically. "People hate me for existing."

"That doesn't mean there's something wrong with _you_ – those 'people' are effing stupid," the girl replied stubbornly. "People see what it's easiest to see. They're too lazy to think for themselves, most of them. They don't bother with details…"

"Uh…" Suddenly Scorpius's voice turned nervous.

There was a long silence. Then the girl spoke again.

"You're… interesting. I can't drag you down with me, though," she said. " _Flipendo!"_

There was a thunderous sound, and the walls of the owlery shook. Before Albus could react any further, Sylvia had torn up the stairs past him. He gave a fruitless reach for her arm for a moment before deciding to follow himself.

As he emerged into the chamber, there was a slow-motion moment where Albus had enough time to survey Scorpius, on his feet, next to Lilith Cross, and behind them a shapeless form of something on the ground. At the same time, though, Lilith was already charging up another spell and aiming.

Sylvia swore as she ducked out of the way. There was a crackling noise. White sparks burst from one of the stone bricks dangerously close to her and Albus's heads.

"Don't come any closer!" Lilith warned. Sylvia, well past the point of negotiation, made a move toward her anyway – but then Lilith held aloft a glowing wand and screamed: " _I'M NOT JOKING – I'LL HURT YOU!"_

Scorpius glanced at Albus and Sylvia for a moment, then intervened. Firmly against her initial resistance, then gently as she calmed and stopped fighting him, he lowered Lilith's wand arm.

"This was your big secret?" Sylvia asked. "Everything you put the lot of us through—"

"I didn't put _you lot_ through anything," Scorpius interrupted coldly. "I thought I was over the fact that I have to explain myself to people over and over. I thought I was alright with it – well, you know what? _I'm not! I'm tired and I'm pissed off!_ Sure, everything's just great as long as I can keep up an act, but let me just drop the ball _once_. Let me have _one_ bad day or do _one_ thing you don't understand, and it's right back to, 'See? That Malfoy's a piece of shit anyway. I knew he was no good.'"

"Scorpius—" Albus thought he'd be the one trying to calm Scorpius down. But he was hearing Lilith's audible voice layered over his mental voice, and soon realize that his words had gotten lost from his brain on his way to his mouth. It had been a couple of years since he had seen Scorpius like this.

"Fine, so you're frustrated. I get it," Sylvia replied – but judging by her tone, she obviously didn't, Albus thought. "That's still not a good reason to go prancing around with some – some –"

"Some _what_?" Scorpius snapped.

"You can't tell me you don't know what Godric's Guard really are!" Sylvia exclaimed. "They're—"

"I knowwhat they are, Sylvia. That's why I joined up with them in the first place!" Scorpius snarled. "Vaisey and Temple don't care if you've never pointed a wand at them. You've got the serpent for an emblem, you're an enemy. If you think there's the slightest chance I let one of those two near Lena again without having something to say about it, you're mad."

Silence. _That_ revelation certainly changed things.

"Is that all?" asked Albus. "You could've explained that."

"And _you_ could've just trusted me," Scorpius bit back. "When was I supposed to explain? With the other members staring at me, with you and Rose pointing your bloody wands at my head?"

"You're _not_ helping yourself," Sylvia countered. "First Godric's Guard and now Cross? Of course it's going to look bad if you don't explain yourself to anyone."

"He's got nothing to do with me," Lilith said casually. "We just came across each other by chance. You can have him back if you like."

"What? Screw that," Scorpius immediately protested. "I'm not going with them anywhere."

"Tommy sent us to bring you back to the castle," Albus advised him. "He's trying to do you a favor – if he doesn't see you out here by yourself, he doesn't have to dock Gryffindor any points—"

"You think I give a damn about Gryffindor's points?" Scorpius interrupted. "What the hell do I look like, trying to earn the House Cup for a bunch of people that don't even like me?"

"This is obviously getting us nowhere," Lilith remarked almost airily, with a showy shrug. "So if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to my business – _Aculeo!"_

Albus and Sylvia both flinched, and so did Scorpius a bit. The spell, however, was not aimed at any of them. Lilith had whirled around and fired it, strangely enough, at the floor. It clearly hit something, though, because the jet of light burst against a surface and made a nasty hissing sound that was followed by a loud scream.

"It wasn't a bad charm," Lilith said, talking to the spot on the floor now, seemingly heedless of anyone else in the room. "You just did a rubbish job keeping yourself hidden. _Accio Cloak!"_

It was as if a blanket in the exact colors of the stone-and-wood backdrop had been removed. What was now there was a girl, supine, scooting back on her bottom, hands around one knee, wearing a grimace of pain.

Albus stepped forward, barely aware of Sylvia's effort to keep him from doing so. " _What are you doing?!"_

Scorpius must have registered something abnormal about Albus's mood. His gray eyes flickered toward his fellow Gryffindors and then back toward Lilith, who studied the newcomer and then let out a sigh. She walked slowly over to the girl, who was obviously a bit younger and frightened out of her mind. She kept scooting back until her back was against the wall. The little girl's eyes met Albus's from across the room…

"Don't move," Lilith said without looking at either Albus or Sylvia. "This doesn't have anything to do with you."

Lilith knelt before the little girl, who was obviously either too hurt or too afraid to get up and run. She sucked her teeth three times in an expression of pity. " _Tsk, tsk, tsk._ Adrienne, right?"

The little girl gave a whimper, neither of affirmation nor denial.

"He's a real bastard for putting you in this situation," Lilith said, in a tone Albus guessed she meant to be soothing. However, it wasn't working, to put it mildly. The youngest witch looked near ready to wet herself with fear. "Can't imagine your brother's too happy with him."

An instinct within Albus's gut had taken over again. "You'd better not hurt her!" he warned.

"Hurt her?" Lilith seemed to find the suggestion humorous. "Why would I do that?"

Again, Adrienne tried to scramble away from Lilith. But as she put weight on one of her knees – likely where Lilith had hit her with the Stinging Hex a moment ago – the pain proved to be too great. She let out a whimper and went to her backside again.

"Ooh… that looks bad. Probably all swollen. I wouldn't try walking on it if I were you," Lilith commented in a cloying faux-sympathetic voice. "In fact, it's probably better if you don't move at all." She pointed her wand. " _Petrificus Totalus!"_

A point-blank white flash erupted from her wand and enveloped Adrienne. When it disappeared, Adrienne was on her side, propped up against the wall in a stiff position that looked extremely uncomfortable.

Scorpius looked horrified, and even paler than usual. "What the hell did you do that for?" He aimed his wand in Adrienne's direction. " _Finite—"_

" _Stop,"_ Lilith implored him, which prompted a silence that was broken only by the uncomfortable and unnerving sound of sobbing from the little girl frozen against the wall. Lilith stood up, backed away a few steps and stared for a moment at the results of her wandwork. "She's spying on me for someone. She's not the first, either. Sometimes it's a prefect, sometimes one of the older students."

"Malcolm," Albus blurted out almost without thinking. Both Sylvia and Scorpius (the latter somewhat despite himself) turned to look at Albus. "You think it's Malcolm."

"You're clever," Lilith answered. Albus wasn't sure whether she was being sarcastic or not. Suddenly, something in Scorpius's eyes glazed over.

"You think Malcolm tried to kill you," he said. "I just remembered."

"What kind of rubbish—" Sylvia uttered, glancing between the other three. "Malcolm's a weirdo for sure. He can be a bit of a prick, frankly. But _kill –_ he wouldn't kill his own students. No teacher would... and not a Hufflepuff from his own house. You know how much he _loves_ that lot…"

"I don't think he wanted me dead," Lilith admitted. "I _do_ think he – or someone – wanted me out of the way."

Silence.

"About the fire…"

"You did it, didn't you?" Sylvia asked.

Slowly, silently, Lilith Cross nodded. There was a pregnant, almost cold sort of pause in the air, during which all that was audible was the rushing torrent outside and the echoing sobs of the cursed girl against the wall.

"You bitch," Sylvia muttered shakily.

Sylvia drew her wand. Albus knew his instinct should have been to stop her. This time, though, he didn't move a muscle.

Scorpius did, though.

" _Stop_ ," he implored her, forcing himself in front of Lilith – an action that, judging by her expression, Lilith did not expect. "That's not the whole story. Are you going to let her finish or what?"

"No, I'm not," Sylvia answered. "Get out of the way."

"That's exactly your problem!" Scorpius exclaimed suddenly. "You've all got your bloody minds made up already and you won't let anyone else talk!"

"What excuse could someone possibly have for what she did?!" Sylvia argued. "Albus almost died! I almost died! Hell, _you_ almost died! Why are you defending her?!"

"I've got… this theory…" Scorpius replied weakly. This only served to anger Sylvia all the more. She scoffed.

"A theory," she said. "You're selling your friends out because of 'a theory.' You know what?"

She raised her wand again.

Albus heard a scream from… somewhere. Sylvia was seeing red, not paying attention. Albus himself reacted, though – he whirled around just in time to see a girl emerging into the room from the staircase.

" _Flipendo_!" the voice of a witch cried. Sylvia was just now looking over her shoulder – not fast enough. Albus dove between Sylvia and the caster…

It was like a punch to the ribs. His wind left him. His senses went haywire and his world blurred with pain and motion. Strong hands braced around his chest and kept him from falling. An arm that did not belong to him extended from out of his torso, holding a wand, firing a spell.

Albus got enough of a look at the new black-haired girl on the other end of the spell and let out a gasp.

The black-haired girl cringed in anticipation for the hit, but a whirl of black robes thrust its way into the spot and shouted an incantation. A dome of wispy light flashed into appearance for a second as the spell from Albus's end was deflected and sparked harmlessly against a nearby wall.

Of the two new wizards that appeared, the one in the hood and black robes, who had cast the last spell, appeared to be weakened by their own efforts. They crumpled to a kneel.

Just when the action appeared to be over, a _third_ wizard – a lank-haired boy Albus recognized – leapt into the room, surveying everything. He went over to the black-robed figure.

"Again?" he asked. "You need to stop doing that."

But the black-robed mage shrugged him off. "I'm fine," she – at least by voice she was a 'she' – replied a bit stubbornly. She stood, with a bit of difficultly.

"Ants in a flooding colony," she remarked, seemingly apropos to nothing. "That's what we've been turned into."

And then, she lowered her hood.


	12. Chapter 12: Convergence, Pt 2

Chapter 12: A Necessary and Fateful Convergence, Pt. 2

Just outside the tower, rain hissed and thunder crackled in the ensuing silence.

Brynne Walter stepped into the center of the tower, surveying her surroundings. This was certainly a more crowded situation than in which she expected to find herself. Trying to ignore the encroaching lightheadedness, she set her eyes first to her left, where Albus Potter stood guardedly in front of Sylvia Thomas. Albus was trying to keep a strong front, which wasn't common for him. Brynne had never seen Albus as weak; he just disguised his strength more thickly than his brother did. Sylvia was behind him a bit, out of his line of sight, giving Albus a look as if she had happened across a bag of a hundred Galleons in the middle of Knockturn Alley and couldn't believe what she was seeing was real.

Something flitted through Brynne's field of vision, accompanied by fast footfalls. Brynne averted her eyes in the direction of the runner.

Lilith stepped aside, almost evasively, and watched along with everyone else as small, black-haired Lena Urquhart threw herself into the chest of the platinum-haired boy, who seemed too shocked to react. After a moment, though, he put his arms around the girl, not looking all that comfortable. His eyes darted around him almost furtively, his fear at showing any level of tenderness very obvious.

Scorpius Malfoy was afraid of turning to evil – of proving his intolerant observers right – but also too scarred by experience to fully embrace his own goodness. Because goodness equaled vulnerability, and vulnerability was likely, in his estimation, an invitation for someone to put a knife into his back. That, she thought, was extremely sad – but not nearly as sad as the expression on the girl silently observing him.

They had not seen much of each other face-to-face outside of a couple of classes. But one thing had become painfully clear in the last several weeks; the Lilith Cross that disappeared from Hogwarts the spring before last was not the same Lilith Cross that had come back, or now stood before her today. Two years was enough to change people; Brynne knew that. But Brynne also knew, or at least heard, that Lilith Cross had seen some things. She spent a year in virtual isolation from other wizards and witches her own age. Her family literally fractured down the middle. She lost her sister, who had one point had been her closest friend. And it was that last awful trauma that was causing her reaction in this moment. Lena and Scorpius were as close as two family members could be for having only truly met each other a year ago. They were nearly like siblings themselves. And Brynne could only imagine how much this visual reminder of what Lilith had lost was tearing her heart out of her. Even from a short distance, Brynne could see Lilith's eyes glazing over and then watering.

"You!" Suddenly she brandished her wand and turned it in Brynne's direction. But she was not pointing _at_ Brynne. Rather, she was pointing at Kadric Howell, who flinched a bit, obviously not keen on being attacked but also reluctant to pull his own wand to defend himself. "I know you. You've been following me. What, they've got Ambrose keeping tabs on me, too?"

"Ambrose didn't send him," Brynne said, concentrating on keeping her tone from shaking at all. If she was fated to be the voice of sanity in this mad situation, her voice could not afford to be anything but sane. " _I_ did."

"Really?" asked Lilith, obviously not believing her. "And who sent _you?_ "

Brynne looked around the room. "Three Slytherins… Three Gryffindors…" Her eyes found the small girl oddly slumped over in the corner. Briskly, she crossed the room and knelt next to her. " _Finite Incantatem."_ She stood, followed soon after by the girl that had been hexed. She wasn't in Brynne's year and Brynne couldn't remember her name – only that she was a Hufflepuff and the younger sister of one of Professor Malcolm's Prefects. "Two Hufflepuffs. Right now, all of us simply being in this tower together is against the rules. Why is that?"

Brynne knew it would sound unbelievable. Maybe less unbelievable than if she were talking to the Professors, or Godric's Guard, or the Slytherin gang calling themselves the Progenies. But still, unbelievable. And perhaps dangerous – particularly if they knew where she had gotten her information. But then, they were already in danger if things didn't change soon. That made her decision easy.

"Everything that's happened at Hogwarts this year was based on the fact that Garrick Claudius, a Slytherin student, attempted to murder Professor Longbottom," she said. "So everything that's happened at Hogwarts this year has been based on a lie. Garrick Claudius was innocent. Someone assumed his identity, attacked Professor Longbottom, framed him, then used the Imperius Curse on the real Claudius to make him confess to the crime."

Scorpius and Lilith glanced at each other.

"Who would have done that?" Lilith asked breathlessly.

"The same person that did it to you, I'd bet," Brynne surmised. "And I would guess this was the same person that wanted you away from Hogwarts – the same person that sent your parents threatening letters saying you would die if you came back. You have holes in your memory, don't you? Places that you try to reach into… but you only find fog or empty space."

Lilith was shaking, her hands now balled into fists. Her face was twisted horribly, trying (and failing miserably) to hold back tears.

"You don't know anything about me," she choked.

"I know what you're looking for," Brynne answered. "And I know we can't find it the way things are now. That's why I'm asking you to help me."

Lilith appeared to contemplate it for a long moment. Her eyes glazed over and Brynne, for one wild moment, thought that maybe, just maybe, she had gotten through to her—

Lilith's lip curled. "It's all as long as I play by _your_ rules, right? No… I don't think that'll work for me."

She glanced back at Scorpius, then _glared_ at Brynne – and then began to walk through the middle of the room. Scorpius, though, called after her. "Wait—"

"Don't act like that," Lilith replied flatly – but she did as asked, and turned back to look at Scorpius. "You don't want to follow me where I'm going. It's not worth it for you."

She glanced at Lena, who was still next to Scorpius… and then toward Albus and Sylvia. (The latter tensed noticeably.) Last, she turned her eyes back on Scorpius, who had never looked away from her. Lilith opened her mouth, presumably to say something else… but whatever that 'something else' was, she bit it back behind her lip in the end, the corner of her mouth twitching upward into a split-second sad smile. Then she turned her back on him; but still he did not look away.

"You don't want to be friends, that's fine," Brynne said, just as Lilith was reaching the top of the stairs. She stopped. "That's your choice. You should be careful, though."

"Because of _him_?" Lilith queried. "I know that already."

"No – because of _me_ ," Brynne answered without looking at her.

"Is that a threat?" Lilith asked. "Are you threatening me?"

"We're _not_ enemies," Brynne said. "I want you to know that. But I can't stop myself now, even if I wanted to. So if you end up between me and where I mean to go… I'll run right through you. It's that simple."

Lilith didn't respond. In fact, the very next thing Brynne heard was her footsteps. She had departed without so much as another word. Once she was well out of earshot, Kadric sourly summarized, "Well, this has been a waste of time."

"Not really," Brynne disagreed. "She knows where to find us if she wants to. Hopefully she does it before she does something completely stupid."

"Is that really worth much?" Kadric asked impatiently – but there was a touch of sadness in his voice.

Brynne grimaced. "We'll find out soon, I guess. We should get back to the library while we've still got a few hours."

She and Kadric started walking toward the stairs themselves. After a few paces, though, she noticed one among their number was not moving. She looked over at Lena, who was still standing in front of Scorpius – and, in fact, had grabbed each of his hands in one of her own.

"Why are you with Godric's Guard?" Lena asked him. "They're no good. You know that, right? Does being loyal to Gryffindor mean that much to you?"

"Hell, no. Half of the Guard can't stand me," replied Scorpius. "I wanted to keep you safe. But you've got to keep a low profile."

Lena frowned. "Steph is…"

"You need to forget about him… Lena." Scorpius tried to be firm but gentle in saying what Brynne had thought for months but hadn't had the heart to tell her. "Whatever he was when you were younger… he's not that now."

But here, Lena let go of Scorpius's hands. "I'm not like you, Scorpius. I can't just give up on people I care about that easily."

Scorpius looked wounded. He bit his lip and averted his gray eyes from her face. "I'm just trying to protect you."

"From him?" Lena asked. "Yes, 'him' – not 'that.' He's not some sort of… thing. He's a human being."

"He's bad for you," Scorpius contended, this time a bit more loudly.

"I don't care!" Lena snapped. "I can't give up on him. You don't get it."

She took a single, pronounced step back from Scorpius.

"You've had it worse than you deserve… but at least you can always go home," she said. She turned toward Brynne – but her green eyes widened a bit. Brynne tilted her head in confusion, and it took several seconds for her to realize that Lena was not looking _at_ her but _past_ her, to a spot on the wall behind Brynne and Kadric.

Brynne whirled around.

Albus Potter and Sylvia Thomas were standing in front of her, blocking her way to the stairwell.

"We're going," Kadric said by way of a warning.

"Oh, no, you're not," Sylvia answered sharply. But she was not the one concerning Brynne at the moment. Albus's green eyes were glittering, and he had an expression on his face Brynne had never seen before. It was the look of someone terrified of a decision he had made in the moment but not willing to back down from it, either.

"I get it," he said. Brynne heard a tremor in his voice that instantly put her on her guard a bit. "You and James knew this was coming months ago, didn't you? And you tried to tell people and warn them, but no one would listen and that's part of why everything's gone straight to hell lately. But James thought he could hide me from it… is that it?"

Brynne swallowed hard. "…He didn't want you involved."

"That's been going well, hasn't it?" Albus asked savagely, his eyes glinting. "You know, I saw my sister today. Lily. She said she knows you. I wouldn't have known that. I don't get to talk to her much nowadays, but she snuck across the stadium to see me during the game. She had to sneak and use a disguise and even then, Temple caught her and started giving us trouble."

Brynne sighed. "I warned her it wasn't a good idea—"

This, evidently, was not the right answer.

"That's beside the point!" Albus snapped, with a shout that rang against the stone walls of the tower. Sylvia's jaw unhinged.

Whatever had happened at today's Quidditch match had been the most likely final straw, but it was fairly obvious that Albus had been observing the goings-on at Hogwarts from afar for a while now.

"That's my sister," Albus said. The look on his face was heartbreaking; he looked at the same time enraged, trying to control his rage, and terrified at a level of rage he hadn't realized was inside of him. Blinking back tears, he repeated softly and shakily, "That's – _my – sister_. _And the rules say I can't even talk to her when I see her in the halls, and that's just goddamn mental."_

This was met with silence.

"It all goes back to the attack – Claudius or whoever the hell did it. I haven't seen or heard from Neville since then. To you lot he's just Professor Longbottom, the Herbology teacher. But to me, he's just Neville… my godfather."

Sylvia took a step back from Albus. The look he gave her in return indicated that he wasn't surprised by her reaction. "God," she uttered breathlessly. "Al… you never…"

"No, I didn't," Albus conceded. "Outside my family and the people that keep our family's records in the Ministry, not a lot of people know. It's not something we really wanted to announce to the world, even back when I was born. But I've known him since I was a baby. He's as good as family to me and I almost lost him _and_ James in that room that day. And I'm not sure I didn't lose James, really. He hasn't been the same ever since. It's like that room took my brother and replaced him with…"

He trailed off, and couldn't finish the sentence. Sylvia watched him sadly, obviously at a loss as for what to do for him. Worry and hurt flooded Brynne's insides, like an electric shock or a sudden sensation of numbness coursing through her body. She had only ever seen James in passing this term, but he'd always looked more or less… alright. But if what Albus said was true….

 _What did he do to you?_ she thought sadly.

What was going to be waiting for her tomorrow? Would he show up at all? And if he did… if he did, which James Potter was going to greet her?

The one belonging to _that man_ , who thought himself a monster, and took delight in making new monsters? _His_ James Potter?

Or hers?

"What happened in there?" Albus asked. "I know you probably don't like talking about it, but… James and Murphy won't give me a straight answer. I need to know."

Brynne sighed. She wondered if James would hate her for this if he knew. _But then, maybe he does already_ , she thought. _Maybe Beal's twisted him that much. If so… this won't make much of a difference, will it?_ "The person that did it isn't here at Hogwarts. He's not in Azkaban, either."

"Where is he, then?" he asked, almost desperately.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Brynne answered. "In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter right now. We've got to deal with what he left behind before we can do anything else."

"I need to know what I can do," Albus requested. Brynne's answer was simple.

"Nothing."

But Albus misunderstood this, so it didn't have the desired effect. "Don't tell me 'nothing' – like I'm some little kid who'll just get in the way if I try," he said angrily. "Whoever, _whatever_ this is, you and James are fighting it – and I'm every bit the wizard the two of you are. I'm not going to do 'nothing.'"

"Not even if it helps us do something?" Brynne asked.

"Why do I have to be the one to sit on the sidelines?" asked Albus, irritated.

"Because that's what everybody expects you to do," Brynne replied bluntly. "The moment you do _anything_ out of the ordinary, you'll get everyone's attention."

"That's bad?" Albus questioned. "People need to know something's wrong."

"And they will," Brynne tried to reassure him. "But the right people – at the right time."

"And that's not now?" asked Albus, his impatience obvious.

Brynne sighed. "No," she said. "Not now… but soon. What you've got to understand about any sort of crisis... there are people who caused it, and then people who didn't but let it go on because they don't care or they have something to gain. They're the ones that get in the way the most in the end, so any sort of resistance has to be strong enough to deal with them when they push back – and they will. They will, as soon as someone or something steps out of line and catches their attention."

"What are you, then?" Albus asked.

"Me? I tilt at windmills," Brynne answered simply. "Or at least, that's what people think. I used to hate it, but it's useful. People think I'm odd. So if I do something out of the ordinary, hardly anyone bats an eyelid. And I'm fine with that."

Brynne wasn't sure which it was, but _something_ she had said in all of those words prompted Albus to relent, and step aside. She glanced at Kadric, who followed her toward the stairwell. A quicker set of footfalls behind her signaled that Lena was following as well. She was right at the stairs (and Kadric and Lena were already descending them) when she realized she had one thing left to say.

"If you ever doubt if you should be in Gryffindor… don't," she said. "You've got more courage than most of them. It's easy to wave your wand around. Asking questions, demanding answers… that's what _really_ takes courage. And if more people were like you and James, we wouldn't be in this situation."

Albus, though, no longer seemed to be in the mood for talking. He had run out of either patience or emotional energy, and was looking squarely away from Brynne. He'd heard her, though, and she hoped he'd been listening.

She opened her own eyes the next morning to near darkness, other than the ethereal green glows on the wall that served to light the room at night. If there was one thing Brynne did not enjoy about Slytherin Dungeon, it was the lack of natural light. Theirs was the lowest common room of the four, almost completely underground. During better times, it had been a joke among Slytherin peers, who called members of the other Houses "surface dwellers." Conversely, other Houses joked about Slytherin being vampires because of their dark common room and commonly reclusive nature. But those jokes were just jokes…

Incidentally, Brynne thought as she dressed, there had been part-vampire wizards in Britain. The few that attended Hogwarts as children, though, were typically sorted into Hufflepuff. Maybe Malcolm was part-vampire, she mused, and it made her smile a bit. He certainly looked the part with his black robes; although Brynne herself, observing her pale-skinned, not-yet-robed form in the mirror next to her bed, realized that she had no room to talk.

A low, slow, grinding sound rumbled from the other side of the room as she dressed. Marsha Flint was a snorer, to put it mildly. Brynne almost would have preferred to have her awake at the moment, than listen to that godawful noise. It wasn't as if she would have asked questions; she knew better than that. Although she and Amara were both part of the Progenies, and might have taken it upon themselves to follow her. That would have forced Brynne to treat them… unpleasantly. (Although maybe not quite as unpleasantly as Lilith treated that young Hufflepuff girl… Brynne wondered whether she was alright.)

The staircase down into the girls' dormitories was almost empty – well, except for the doorway into the common room, which was currently being occupied by a taller witch who was blocking it.

"Excuse me," Brynne said politely.

The girl turned around and Brynne found herself staring up at the scowling face of Amarilys Pucey.

"Walter," Pucey said, by way of a cold greeting. "Good morning. Not planning on venturing out into Hogwarts' halls by yourself, are you? Beside it being against the rules, you know it's not safe."

"I've noticed," Brynne answered coolly. "It's even less safe if you put a target on your back."

Pucey rolled her eyes. "Don't be naïve. We've all got targets on our backs. That's why the Progenies exist. Unfortunately. We shouldn't need to."

Brynne pursed her lips thoughtfully. "We agree on that much, at least."

Pucey had offered her – offered most of the Slytherins in her year, really. But anyone who knew her had to have known what the answer would be, even before approaching. Her class was unusually small – only six total students in her House and year.

Four were with the Progenies. The last two were herself, and Kadric Howell.

Maybe, she thought as Pucey let her by and she took a seat in front of the fire (it was very early Sunday morning and the common room was almost completely empty), Kadric would be the first to join her. He was an early riser, typically. Before the Crisis started, he was almost always first to leave the dungeon. Tellius Nott commented on that, back in happier times. Now, often, Kadric would wait for Brynne. They were each other's only available friend in the same year, after all.

It was a shame, Brynne thought; Tellius and Kadric should have gotten on well. Both were similarly reserved and thoughtful. The same was true for Lena, although she likely would have spent quite a bit of her time with Scorpius if things were not as they were. Yesterday had been overall a bit unpleasant, but at least that bit of good had come out of it. Lena saw him, knew that he did not hate her. Brynne couldn't have known for sure because the two didn't share a room, but she imagined Lena slept more soundly and more happily last night than she had done for the better part of a month.

Maybe, Brynne thought as she smiled to herself looking at the fire, that was why Lena wasn't out of bed yet, either.

 _CLACK. CLACK._

Brynne's eyes darted in the direction of what sounded like footsteps. A few paces in front of the door to the girls' dormitories, was Lily Potter, frozen in mid-stride wearing a bit of a cringe on her face like she'd snapped a twig in the woods in her effort to walk silently.

"You're up," Brynne called.

"Should I not be?" Lily asked, nonetheless walking over to the couch. She sat down next to Brynne, who didn't look at her for several moments.

"I heard you ran into a bit of trouble yesterday," Brynne remarked. "You didn't follow my advice."

"It's gonna sound insensitive and I'm sorry," Lily answered. "But if you had siblings, you'd get it."

"I don't _not_ get it," Brynne answered, managing a small smile. "Why do you think I gave you that wig?"

"…Where'd you get that from anyway?" asked Lily.

"It was my mum's… when she was a little girl," Brynne replied, with a fond smile. "Actually, my mum and aunt shared it. They were identical twins… so one of them would wear it around the house and then they would switch when no one was looking to confuse my grandparents."

Lily laughed at this. "My family had a pair of twins. My Uncle George, who runs Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes… he had a twin."

"Had?" Brynne repeated as a query, tentatively.

"My uncle Fred. He died… back during the war, before I was born," Lily said. "He was the only one out of my mum's brothers who didn't make it. I couldn't imagine…"

She trailed off suddenly.

"I couldn't imagine losing one of my brothers," she muttered, as if struggling to get the words out. "Not even James. Especially not James. He teases Al and me all the time. Or at least, he used to. But he made everybody laugh, too. He hasn't been the same since he came back from Hogwarts last summer."

Brynne certainly wasn't about to tell Lily what had happened – either she knew already, Brynne thought, or she didn't know and was better off not knowing.

"He wrote a letter to you," Lily said quickly after a long silence, as if she'd just remembered. Brynne felt her heart trip over itself. "I mean… he never sent it. He threw it out. I don't think he knew how to get it to you. We don't own an owl. Which is sort of odd, actually. We can afford one… I think Dad's just worried about our owl getting spied on. You know, with him being the Head Auror and everything."

"Do you know what it said?" Brynne asked before she could stop herself.

But Lily shook her head. "Didn't take time to look. But… he hasn't written a letter since his first year. He used to write letters to me and Mum at least once a week. But… he grew up, I guess."

The sadness in Lily's voice made it clearer what she _really_ thought – not just that he had grown up but that they had grown apart. That maybe, now that he was fourteen, that his parents and his baby sister embarrassed him just a bit. None of this could have been further from the truth, of course; and Brynne figured, if she could help Lily no other way right now, she could at least tell her that.

"He loves you – very much. You know that, right?" she said, wondering if it would ring hollow. She wondered, in fact, if it would make things worse. But Lily just nodded and smiled.

"I know," she said simply. "How…"

She clammed up, but Brynne was now interested in what question she'd meant to ask. "Hmm?" she uttered, trying to encourage her.

Lily hesitated. "How'd you two meet? Sorry, I'm just curious because… you're in different houses but different years, too, so you couldn't have had any classes together."

Brynne smiled. "He got into trouble."

Lily smiled again. "Sounds about right."

"So, Professor Longbottom sent him to live down here, to teach him a lesson," Brynne explained.

Lily's mouth rounded thoughtfully. But she grinned after a moment. "He can be really stubborn, though. Did he learn the lesson?"

Another fond smile crossed Brynne's face.

 **James  
**

James wasn't sure why he'd bothered coming to the Great Hall. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure he could force anything down and keep it there. His guts were all over the place, in every direction except for right-side-up, to the point where he felt like he could be sick without eating as much as a morsel of food.

As such, he tried to distract himself by thinking. Which was, of course, completely ineffective; the thing his mind wandered to was the very source of his nerves and discomfort.

 ****"Why the Come and Go Room?" he queried. "What does Brynne want there?"

"The history," another voice joined the conversation from somewhere behind James. James whirled around and focused his gaze further down the Gryffindor table. Approaching them, holding a quite stout-looking book under his arm, was a boy only a bit younger than James or Murphy. Rowan Lester's nearly shoulder-length waves of washed-out gold recalled the growing mane of a young lion. His glasses, however, softened his look and gave him the appearance of an intellectual. He took the seat next to James, placing his large book on the table with a dull _thud_. (" _Careful_ , mate," Murphy drawled as he'd had to grab hold of his goblet to keep it from tipping over and spilling its contents onto the table)

"Maybe it's just the symbolism, maybe it's some sort of actual power, but… any time Hogwarts has been in crisis, the Come and Go Room has been instrumental in bringing peace back to the castle. Haven't you ever wondered why the Room exists?" Rowan asked.

"Well, no, honestly," replied Murphy, now between sips of his rescued drink. "Never thought about it."

"The Four Founders were the brightest witches and wizards of their age," explained Rowan, his eyes darting between the two other boys behind his spectacles. "I doubt that the magic they built in and around this castle was the product of accident. Like the staircases, for instance. A defence mechanism."

"You serious?" Murphy replied. The magicked stairwells were generally considered to be a useless annoyance by most Hogwarts students. For new students not familiar with their workings, they commonly caused inconvenience. To some rather less fortunate students, they caused injuries.

"Think about the era the Founders lived in," replied Rowan. "This castle wasn't always Unplottable. It would be decades before the Founders figured out how to do that properly. So what if Muggles happened upon the castle and attacked it? There had to be defenses both inside and outside of the castle to protect the students in case that happened. And in case the castle was overrun, there had to be ways for at least some of them to hide or escape. If not, wizards in Britain could be virtually wiped out."

"So the Come and Go Room was one of those hiding places?" James asked.

"Possibly. Possibly not. It's possible it didn't even exist at the time of the Founders, honestly," Rowan asked. "The castle has been exposed to so much magic over the centuries, it's almost become sentient – has a mind of its own, I mean. For example, no matter how few or how many students are at Hogwarts in a given year, we always have just enough space for them. Just enough beds. Never too few, but never too many, either. You ever noticed that? Secret passageways out of the castle that were destroyed during the War were replaced by others that seemed to appear out of nowhere."

James frowned. _That's why Dad said the Marauders' Map may not be reliable anymore,_ he thought.

"Whatever 'soul' this castle has, though…" Rowan went on. "Whenever there's been a crisis here at Hogwarts, the castle itself has usually found ways to help its inhabitants resist. And many times, the Come and Go Room was part of that."

"So Brynne's looking to find the… 'soul' of Hogwarts?" Murphy asked.

"I can't be a hundred percent sure, but… you can't tell me that it sounds out of place for her," Rowan contended. "I mean… you both know her better than I do."

"How _do_ you know her, anyway?" asked Murphy. Rowan made a face. "I mean… I just think it was weird. I never knew you two spoke to each other."

"We didn't," Rowan replied curtly, not looking James in the eye. "Up until this year, really. My Uncle Flynn travels and does odd jobs around Britain. I help him out. Long story short, we had an issue with a dragon and some poachers in Wales and crash-landed after escaping. As luck would have it, we went down in Morgana's Orchard, right in front of Brynne's place. And we… just… sorta never left after that."

"So you all live together?" Murphy asked. Rowan gave the quickest glance to James and winced.

"We did, for part of the summer," he answered, looking thoroughly uncomfortable. "But that's just because Uncle Flynn's leg was in pieces. He couldn't travel. Lucky we landed where we did, honestly – or else he might've lost the leg. Brynne's aunt, Flora… she nursed Uncle Flynn back to health, like I said. She'd started training as a Healer not long out of school, but then her sister died…"

"Was murdered, you mean," James corrected him. Rowan's face became grim.

"Yeah," he agreed. "So she took Brynne and went into hiding at the Orchard. I kind of wonder what kept her there. Your dad put _Gladius Leo_ away, after all."

He glanced at James again, a bit nervously. James's heart sank. He knew what was happening.

Almost as if Rowan had read his mind, he then hastily said, "No, I don't like her. I mean, I like her, I care for her as a friend, but I don't _fancy_ her." Then, almost as if he thought James would be offended by this, he added, "I mean, she's… I could definitely see where someone _would_ , but… not me. We're… friends, and I'm alright with that. Plus, things would be weird."

"Weird?" Murphy queried.

"I mean…" Rowan went on uncertainly. "I guess, technically, there wouldn't be anything _wrong_ with it, but it'd be weird… _er_. It's already weird."

"Ickle tyke," Murphy chuckled. Rowan glared at him for a moment. "So, nothing at all to worry about." He checked his watch. "Except for being late. It's ten before."

James's heart jumped into his throat. "Are you serious? We should've left five minutes ago."

"We're fine. It's ten minutes – eight if you hurry," Rowan answered casually.

"We should probably hurry, then," James answered, trying to make his space look somewhat organized. Why, he didn't know. The house-elves magicked all of the empty dishes down into the kitchens underneath the Great Hall anyway, so it didn't matter. Neither Murphy nor Rowan bothered with this show. James's heart was punching him in the ribs.

Turning on his heel only to narrowly avoid walking into the chest of Professor C.B. Malcolm didn't help matters.

Why was he showing up now? Did he know? He always looked like he knew.

James comforted himself in the moment with the thought that Malcolm probably knew slightly less than James himself did. And James himself knew nothing.

"In a hurry, Mr. Potter?" he asked.

"Professor?" Rowan emerged from behind James. Almost instantly, Malcolm's expression changed to something… softer. James had no idea why, but it was evident that the dislike Malcolm carried for him and for most Gryffindors didn't quite carry over to Rowan.

"Mr. Lester," Malcolm's voice remained impassive. "Not stirring up trouble, are we? Wouldn't want you running afoul of the wrong people…"

James couldn't help feeling like Malcolm had just made a very thinly veiled threat. At the same time… if he was asking, then clearly he didn't know anything. His icy blue eyes scanned the three boys, seemingly searching for anything untoward.

"You should cut your hair," Malcolm suggested. James was about to register how bizarre this was when he realized that Malcolm was talking to Rowan… which didn't make it that much less bizarre, honestly. "You're starting to look more like him than your father."

And he went on, no doubt straight for Professor Gladstone ("Afternoon, Mr. Albertine," he said to a slightly stout boy passing him in the other direction), who was at the staff table, speaking with the Ancient Runes teacher, Professor Halim.

As he and the other boys made the trek up toward the seventh floor, James mused on the fact that, aside from Neville (where the bloody hell was he? Was he just not coming back to the school at all?), Professor Ziad Halim was his favorite teacher. He probably could have made History of Magic interesting, James thought. In fact, James likely learned a fair bit more about magical history in Ancient Runes than he did in the History class itself. It was hard to talk about Ancient Runes – or anything ancient, really – without delving into history just a bit.

Almost before James realized how far they had walked, they rounded the nearest corner…

His footsteps echoed through the hallway. At a distance, a sandy-haired youth whirled around on the spot, raising a wand.

" _Petrificus—"_

" _Expelliarmus!"_

James barely perceived the flash of light in the distance. The sandy-haired boy flailed his arms, dropped his wand. James stood in place for a moment, his own wand still out – but it was not he that had cast the return jinx.

"If you're going to hex the first person that comes around the corner, mate," Murphy said loudly in the direction of the faraway figures. The sandy-haired boy that had fired upon them was accompanied by a girl. "…Make sure your wand's already up. That split-second it takes you to pull up and aim's gonna get you buggered."

"We're not with the Progenies," the sandy-haired boy loudly announced.

"We know that, Howell," Rowan answered for the group of Gryffindors. "We're on your side."

James noticed a very important absence. "Where's Brynne?"

"Potter?" Howell answered. "Is that you?"

James led his group closer. Howell's face – long, pensive, and with more apparent years on it than what should have been fourteen at most – relaxed in relief.

"I thought you were someone else," he sighed.

"Easy mistake to make," Murphy uttered. "He actually brushed his hair for this special occasion."

James glared at Murphy… but couldn't truly argue facts. A rush of heat went to his cheeks.

He investigated the two Slytherins. He recognized them both as being part of Brynne's circle.

"Where's Brynne?" asked James.

Howell looked to his own right. James glanced in that same direction and saw a rather large door – a door he could have sworn hadn't been there when he'd first arrived.

But then… that was more or less what the Come and Go Room did.

"She asked for you," Howell said. "…Just you. So we were standing out here, keeping watch."

"Why me?" James had the temerity to ask.

"She hasn't said. But I think it's obvious," he answered. "You're a Gryffindor she trusts. Your family's powerful."

"That's not the reason," Lena Urquhart, whose hair and eyes James had recognized immediately, piped up.

"What do you think it is, then?" Howell queried.

Lena shook her head. "I'm not going to say."

"Why not?" Howell asked.

"Even if I'm right, it's not my place," she answered. "If he's going to find out, it needs to be from her."

Howell grimaced, but conceded. "I guess you're right." Then, he glanced at James.

Brynne, James knew, had a gift for inspiring trust and loyalty. He wondered how aware she was that people were willing to do what she asked without putting up much fight. That was a unique power, associated with heroes and leaders – but also with people that had wrought heinous, horrible things. It was something he lacked – and in many ways, he was glad for that. He didn't want people throwing themselves onto swords for him. He'd tasted that bitter taste before, and it wasn't something he wished to see or experience again. He stepped toward the door, running his hand alongside it until he found a handle. Once again, he didn't remember the handle being there when he approached the door. Maybe, in this case, he'd just missed it. It _was_ a very large door, after all.

The door, which looked impossibly huge, opened without much pulling effort from James. He took one final glance behind him at the threshold. He found Murphy's eyes, and his friend gave him a wordless raise of the eyebrows.

 _I think you've kept her waiting long enough._

James took a deep breath and stepped through.

He shut the door behind him. Almost predictably, the room he was now in bore no resemblance to Malcolm's dueling hall. In fact, it bore little resemblance to _anything_. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. The floor was white. Other than the door behind him, which seemed to stand in a frame by itself, James could not remotely tell where floor began, where ceiling ended, or where either met a wall. He wasn't even sure if the floor in front of him was floor or empty space. A bit gingerly, he took a step forward, his heart almost slamming through his chest as he half expected his step to become an interminable fall. But the emptiness and teetering lurch he anticipated never arrived. His foot came down, a bit uncomfortably, into something solid. This cost him his balance and he keeled over, shutting his eyes tight.

His knees thudded into the ground. They started to ache with the impact. A sudden rush of fear kept his eyes firmly shut, so he scrabbled around with his hands, feeling for something other than white nothingness. He took a deep breath, two, three…

His eyes snapped open.

The space before him had transformed – a hall full of golds, browns, and blues, an empty floor lined with carpets, a high ceiling, arcing and peaked as if inside a cathedral. Light shone in from either glass windows or lights made to look like windows. Hanging from the high ceiling was an ornate chandelier that flooded the top half of the room with warm, golden flickers of light. Beams came from the lower lights, cutting through what appeared to be clouds of dust. Whatever this place was, it seemed to have been a long while before it had been used or accessed.

Concentrating on the dust proved to be a mistake; it had probably always been there, but it was as if seeing and identifying it caused James's nose to twitch. Try as he might to avoid it—

His head throbbed. His throat burned. And for a second, his equilibrium failed him as if a fist or a Bludger had caught him in the face and knocked him for a loop. All the while, the echo of his loud sneeze reverberated through the hall.

And that was when he realized he was not alone.

Something black, something he had dismissed as part of the décor originally, rose from the ground, its mass unfurling into a shadow with two feet. The shadow turned around, lowering its hood.

James found himself frozen, fighting himself within his mind. He should have been running – maybe toward, maybe _away,_ but _somewhere_. Yet, he could not, or for some reason would not, move. The drummer in his chest had abandoned its normal cadence as if replaced by someone far less skilled – skipping beats, accelerating then trying to slow down and even itself out. He found himself frustrated at these involuntary reactions. Who or what, he tried to reason with himself, had he been expecting to find here? And why was the revelation filling him with such… _everything_? Why was his vision blurring? Why was wetness crawling from the corners of his eyes to their undersides? Why were his lungs suddenly gasping in air as if he had run a full sprint, or as if they knew they were running out of chances? Why – why – why…

Before he could answer all of these questions – or even one of them, really – he watched the shadow in black raise a wand.

" _Carpe retractum!"_

James flinched as a rope of light found him and coiled itself around his middle. The shadow floated from its place, leaving the ground as it leapt toward him, robes whipping around shapelessly like a ghost (or rather like the Dementors he'd heard about in stories, he thought as a chill rose up his spine).

But this was no Dementor. This was something far more terrifying – and James knew his soul might well leave his body if they so much as met eyes…

Yet, here he was, staring into the rings of blue-gray, those coins of fair-weather sky dotted by black suns reflecting white light. And, blessed oblivion – it was all over. It had been before he ever knew what had happened. He never had a chance. He was a fool for ever wanting one.

"Brynne," he croaked.

Blinking furiously, she shook her head…

And she leapt upon him – a literal _leap_ , all her limbs enclosing him as she left the ground entirely. Hanging on his neck, putting his torso into a vice that was all at the same time slightly painful and the best thing he had ever felt…

Then she leapt down, looked up at him with a faint disbelief in her eyes, took in a short, rattling breath… and buried her face into his chest.


	13. Chapter 13: Concordia

Chapter 13: Concordia

James stood in stunned silence, feeling very unworthy of this sort of welcome. All of his rehearsals had been rendered feeble. Every witty quip, exultant greeting, pathetic excuse for an apology – they were all useless. It was as if it had occurred to James in the moment of truth that what he should have been saying in this moment, now that it was here, was something that wasn't any of those things.

Perhaps the only saving grace for the situation was that Brynne seemed equally at a loss for words. When she finally regained some measure of composure, she just looked at him – not quite a stare. In fact, she was blinking much more than what was usual, trying – failing miserably – to keep her eyes dry, then wiping them surreptitiously as if he was not standing right in front of her and could not see what she was doing.

A terrible thought occurred to James in that moment – what if it was seeing his face again that brought everything back? What if she was reliving all of that, just because he had shown up?

He backed away a step.

"NO, DON'T!"

James froze. He had only heard her scream like that one other time…

"Please don't," she replied, but this time her voice was small, barely audible, almost desperate-sounding. "You can't."

Finally, he arrived at what felt right to say – what felt like at least a big part of the truth. Ironically, it was only then that his heart caught him by the throat.

"You're right," he nonetheless choked out. "I can't."

So much more wanted to escape, but he didn't let it. In that moment, though, arrogance got the better of him and his mind wandered and wondered, whether she was holding something back as well…

Who was he? He had tried, failed, tried again, failed again… She always seemed to get hurt whenever he got too close. Yet he couldn't leave, and she couldn't seem to let him.

"Does your father ever talk about what it was like?" she asked. "Being him back then?"

James was taken aback by this question. They had known each other for well over two years and hardly ever talked about his father. It was something James appreciated, as it made her unlike most other people.

"I know he hated it," James answered soberly. "He still kind of hates it, but… he knows how much power being him has, so if using that power is going to make the world around him safer, he feels like that's his responsibility."

He paused.

"Neville – Professor Longbottom, I mean – told me once…" he remembered. "He told me that the time might come when I'd have to do the same thing."

Brynne's face fell. "Is that why you came?"

"If that's what's going to help," James replied.

"That's not why I asked you here," Brynne said firmly, looking away from him. Her fists were clenched at her side. "I don't need some sort of symbol or a name or something – I don't care what your name is. You've got to know that by now. I need _your_ help. Not the Potter family. I…"

She trailed off, slackened, went quiet. If there was any more to say, she couldn't latch onto the words at the moment. He understood that much, at least.

"Rowan had a theory," James said, once he found his voice again in the silence. "He said you might be looking for power in here… sort of like the 'soul' of Hogwarts or something."

"No," Brynne answered. "I already know I'm not going to find that in any room. What did you see when you first walked in?"

"Nothing," James answered. "Literally just… nothing. It was terrifying, actually…"

"Until you asked it something really clearly, right?" Brynne queried.

"I asked… where you were," James admitted, not knowing why he was so hesitant to do so at this point. He heard her exhale.

"So that proves something, doesn't it? It's not the Room. It's never been the Room," Brynne answered. "It's who uses it. That's the Soul of Hogwarts. _We_ are. But not just us – everyone that's been here before us. This room… I don't even think it's mine, really. It looks like it was used for something, by someone else, a while ago."

James had taken note of the dust ( _Don't sneeze_ , he told himself, as if that would actually work). He'd gotten the same impression. And, of course, he had only found this place after she did.

"But somebody's thoughts made this room what it was," James said. "So, you should be able to do the same thing, right?"

Brynne stood still and thought for a second. A _long_ second. She had gone almost statuesque, not moving a muscle. Finally, she whirled around and drew her wand.

"Try to hex me," she said.

"What!?" James exclaimed. "Brynne – _no._ I'm not gonna do that."

"Do it," she said, and she wasn't asking. "I can take it. I've survived _Cruciatus_ before. Whatever you come up with can't possibly be worse."

James cringed. He drew his wand, shut his eyes tight and aimed in the general direction, hoping he missed. " _Expel—"_

"No!" Brynne exclaimed urgently, and he opened his eyes again. "Not Disarming. Something that would actually hurt. At least a little bit."

James kept his wand aloft for a moment – then lowered it to his side, shaking his head. "Damn it. I can't."

Brynne looked annoyed for a second, but also touched. "James..."

But then she raised her wand.

" _Everte Statum!"_

James, who was going to make no effort to counter, braced for the pain when he heard an awful _BANG_. He knew the jinx Brynne had attempted well enough to know it did _not_ work that way. His eyes snapped open.

And Brynne was lying motionless on the ground.

He swore, and sprinted toward her body – but stopped a moment later when she stirred with a painful sounding cough and wheeze. After taking some time to catch her breath, she looked up.

"Ow."

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" James groaned, approaching closer. But Brynne seemed to be unconcerned with his level of concern. It was only when he arrived at her side that he realized something completely mad – she was _laughing_.

"It worked," she breathed, wide-eyed. "James, it worked. I did it."

"Did… what?" James asked haltingly, utterly stuck and confused.

"You can't use magic to harm someone in here. That's what I told the Room I needed, and it worked," she said quickly. "That means it recognizes me."

He helped her to her feet. 

"Recognizes you…" James repeated. "As its master, you mean?"

"I don't think 'master' is the right word," Brynne said thoughtfully. "I don't think you make rules for this Room… I think you sort of just… put them into effect. You… make the calls that need to be made. Kind of like an Arbiter in Quidditch."

That, of course, was something James could understand and relate to.

"That makes sense," he answered. "So… what's the plan? Your plan, I mean?"

"A safe place," she replied. "A place we could talk through any problems between the Houses without violence."

James paused, contemplated…

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

James didn't answer. Brynne waited… waited…

"It's not bad," he finally said. But then he shook his head. "I don't like it."

Brynne's face fell so cutely, it almost made James change his mind. He wasn't sure if she was laying it on because it was him, or if her face just did that naturally – but she looked like a child that had dropped her licorice wand. But James knew he was right; more importantly, he knew she would know he was right, once he explained himself. So he did.

"You're settling," he said bluntly. "The Brynne I met didn't dream that small."

Her eyes drifted away from him. There was a bit of shame in her face, but also a resignation that he hated to see. _I know, but…_

"You're settling for peace in here when you want it… when we need it… out _there_ ," James said.

"I know, but…" Brynne finally said it. Still not meeting his eye, she added haltingly, "I thought… I thought we were all going to die that day."

"But that's exactly why you can't stop," James replied. "You've risked too much. We all have. We can't bloody well leave without getting what we came for, right?"

She grimaced in acknowledgement.

"You said you were going to change Hogwarts. And at first I thought you were mad, but then I started believing it. I still do."

Brynne's mouth twitched, and she nearly dared to smile.

 _Meanwhile, outside…  
_

"…So we called her a 'hothead' after that."

Rowan Lester glanced at Murphy for a moment and rolled his eyes, but a smirk flashed across his face, betraying his amusement. Then, a wistful look seized his features, intriguing Murphy.

"Must have been fun, growing up with wizard siblings," Rowan mused. "Or any siblings at all, really…"

"You're an only child, I'm guessing?" Kadric Howell asked.

"Yep," Rowan replied. "I wasn't even two yet when my dad died. Mum never remarried after that…"

"Might not be such a bad thing," Lena muttered distractedly, a dark tone to her voice.

"What was that?" asked Rowan – but Lena shook her head.

"Nothing."

"What's taking them?" asked Kadric, looking at his wristwatch. "They sure have been in there a long time."

"Maybe they can't find each other?" Lena theorized.

"Maybe they _did_ find each other," Murphy said offhandedly, with an 'inside-joke-with-no-one-in-particular' sort of smirk. "Whatever they're doing, they'd better get done soon. I don't like this standing around."

"No, I'm sure you don't."

Murphy turned to look at one end of the hallway. Striding toward them were four Slytherins in their green-trimmed black school robes. One of them was an older bloke that looked vaguely familiar. The other three were younger – a boy and two girls. One of the girls was sour-faced and the exact opposite of dainty, whatever that word was. The second was brown-skinned, tall, a budding beauty whose face was marred mainly by an expression that suggested her view that the entire universe was beneath her.

The younger boy was very familiar, a copper-haired lad with an affectedly hard face that was presently breaking out into a smile that didn't quite suit him.

"This is a fun little party we've arrived to, isn't it?" he asked no one in particular, but looked around for some sort of response.

"You guys are stalking people now?" Murphy asked casually. "Shouldn't you be guarding Slytherin's dungeon with the rest of – what do you lot call yourselves? The Progenies?"

"Guarding the dungeon?" the older youth spoke, punctuating his question with a chuckle. "Why? We know even you lot wouldn't be stupid enough to actually launch an attack on our common room. You all talk a big game about dueling face-to-face, but we all know the _real_ truth. You'll hide around corners or in suits of armor, waiting for some defenseless first year to come wandering along, lost. Then, next thing he knows, he's strung up by his pants on the castle battlements with a bag over his head."

Murphy's mouth twitched in spite of himself. Predictably, none of the Slytherin group found it nearly as amusing.

"Think that's funny, do you?" the copper-haired boy snarled. "Your smirk always did piss me off…"

He went to raise his wand, but to Murphy's great shock, the older boy talked him down.

" _Bletchley_. You remember what we agreed to," he warned. "Alright there, Howell?"

"Perfectly fine," Kadric answered, annoyance obvious in his whip-like delivery. "Or I was, until you came along and interrupted us. Murphy and I were having a nice conversation."

"You're not supposed to do that," one of the two girls said in an 'I'm-tattling' sort of voice. "You're not supposed to talk to them. It's against the rules."

"Oh, and you care about rules now. Sure," Lena piped in. "Bullying first years is against the rules, too, but you and Amara did it. Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Easy to see where you get it. My parents both said your father was an a—"

"You leave my father out of this!" snapped the stout girl, her tone suddenly threatening. Murphy recognized her as a Beater and the lone female from Slytherin's Quidditch team. Marsha Flint, if he remembered the name correctly… "I heard the Slytherin team went straight to hell once _your_ dad took over—"

To Murphy's great shock, Lena went to make a move toward Marsha and the others. Kadric was between her and the Slytherin group, though, and held her back (with some difficulty). "Lena. Come on… she's trying to bait you – stop…"

"That's right," Marsha said. "Your friend's trying to spare you an arse-kicking. You should listen to him."

"Marsha, cut it out. You're embarrassing us," the brown-skinned girl (whom Murphy guessed was Amara) scoffed. Marsha turned around.

"Was I speaking to you?" Marsha asked cattily. "I don't think I was."

"You don't have to speak to be spoken to," Amara replied.

Bletchley rolled his eyes wearily.

"You never answered my question," Murphy replied. "What are you doing here?"

"Just checking for any Slytherins that might have lost their way," the oldest of the four answered.

"I don't see any of ours here, Hawes," Bletchley said pointedly, staring a hole through Kadric Howell and Lena Urquhart. He went to turn around, but a call from Kadric stopped him.

"The Hat put us both in the same place," he said. "That's no reason to raise your wand against anybody."

Bletchley audibly scoffed. "You sound like _her_. And you both sound like naïve little kids. You need to grow up."

"I'm not the kid here," Kadric replied. "I stopped blindly following tradition a long time ago."

"Tradition?" the next comment came from Amara Zabini. The tone of her voice sounded like what she looked like. "You've got some nerve."

"Amara—" The oldest Slytherin tried to cut in, but Amara decided she wasn't going to cooperate.

"Shut up, Hawes," she said flatly. Then, rounding on Kadric, she said, "That's part of your problem. You don't get the traditions because nobody taught you…"

"If you lot are what 'tradition' would turn me into, you can keep it," Kadric answered. "I think for myself just fine."

Amara sniffed. "I feel sorry for people like you. But, you know, I shouldn't. You can still be taught. _You_ just won't listen because you're too bloody proud."

"No, I won't listen because it's stupid," Kadric deadpanned. "You think you're better because your house is Slytherin. That's stupid. That's even more stupid than… well, than you thinking you're better than me because both your parents were wizards."

Amara's jaw dropped into an appalled expression that Murphy (for what it was worth) thought was _way_ overdone. "I never said that! What are you, a mind reader now?"

"Wouldn't need to be," Kadric answered distastefully. "You don't do a very good job of hiding it."

"You're wrong," Amara said breathlessly.

"Am I?" Kadric queried. His cheeks were flushed. "I know what you're thinking when you look at me, though. I've known it since our first year. 'I'll deal with him because I have to, but he's really nothing but a stupid Mudblood.'"

This earned a few looks, and a gasp or two. But not from Murphy. He kept his eyes firmly locked on Bletchley and Hawes, waiting for, inwardly _daring_ either of them to make any sudden move—

"That's ridiculous!" Amara cried. She was now well and truly losing her previously unflappable composure and, in fact, looked close to tears. "I would never—"

"—say it out loud?" Kadric interrupted with a question and it was the final blow. Amara went silent, her face blank, and suddenly seemed much smaller than her physical height.

Hawes glanced back to Amara and stepped forward.

"I liked you a lot bet—no, that's a lie. I never liked you. Walking around with your head down all the time, ashamed of your house like you are," he said disdainfully. "But I disliked that bloke a lot less. He was quiet and kept to himself. Now, you talk way too much."

"I'm not coming along quietly," Kadric said simply.

"I know," Hawes answered matter-of-factly, but Murphy could hear the foreboding edge in his voice. "I'm done asking."

Then he drew his wand.

"HAWES!"

Murphy didn't turn around, but he recognized the voice that had bellowed. And if he hadn't, Rowan's reaction – a palming of his face and a quiet groan of, " _Oh, God…"_ – would have been a clue that things had just gone, if only subtly, from bad to worse.

Bletchley's wand was out quickly. "Oh, alright. This is how it's going to go?" But then, he glanced at Hawes, and through his teeth Murphy could hear him muttering, "Somebody tipped them off. No way they could've just guessed we'd be up here."

Funnily, Murphy'd had the exact same idea about the Slytherins' presence. But as he was in the middle of the hallway, right between the Progenies party and a newly arrived group of fourfrom Godric's Guard (Eamonn Temple at their lead), he was _not_ about to point this out.

"Not good," Rowan muttered, looking very unnerved as his bespectacled eyes darted between the groups on either side of himself and the others. "Where the _hell_ are Potter and Brynne?"

"Not sure, but maybe they're better off there at the moment," Kadric Howell reasoned.

But Lena's eyes had focused squarely on Godric's Guard, Murphy observed. Temple was accompanied by Wren Audrey, both fellow sixth years. At opposite wings, though, were two third year boys, both blond; one with a short, almost militant haircut to where the blond was barely discernible, and the other with a shock of platinum that rolled and curled a bit at its ends.

"This seems like a lucky coincidence," Hawes was the first to speak aloud. "You Gryffindors are using spies now?"

"Spies? 'Course not. That's your game, innit?" Temple responded. "I just had a concerned young lad alert me to something he thought was off. We Prefects tell our students to let us know if they see anything… off. Can't be too careful nowadays. Never know who or what could be… _slithering_ around."

"Funny. Bet you stayed up all weekend thinking of that one," Hawes chuckled. "And you brought Vaisey with you. How about that? You've changed a bit. Grown an inch or two, I daresay…"

Hawes wasn't taking this seriously; but maybe, Murphy thought, he should have been - because Stephan Vaisey was staring straight at him, and if the venom in his eyes had been literal, Hawes would have been dying a thousand deaths on the spot. "I'm curious to see how you'll do when the numbers are even, you bastard _—_ "

Vaisey raised his wand, but Hawes (who already had his up) interrupted, " _Whoa, now_. Let's not do anything reckless. You'd better look more closely. That's two of yours here in the middle. Wouldn't want to hit them, would you?"

"Suppose I _don't care_ – what then?" Vaisey snarled. Murphy muttered an oath to himself. Fortunately, Temple was more reasonable. Barely.

"Vaisey, _cool_ it. Murphy, Lester – five points from Gryffindor," Temple said. "You're not supposed to be up here with this lot. Now come this way before this gets any worse."

Murphy took less than a split-second to contemplate this option. Then he shook his head.. "So you can hex my new friends? Not a chance in hell."

"Does it sound like I'm asking you?" Temple queried. "Because I'm _not_. I'm—"

"—A Prefect. Yes, you've said it a million times," Murphy cut him off. "Or at least what passes for a Prefect nowadays—"

"You watch yourself. I'm not afraid to force the respect out of you," Vaisey threatened, his wand aloft and pointing at him.

"Vaisey, _no_ ," Temple tried to dissuade him. "We shouldn't—"

"We _should_. They're helping the enemy," Vaisey answered, his expression growing more frenzied.

"Stephan…"

The voice was small, and yet it brought everything to a stop. Lena had broken from the group and started walking toward Vaisey.

"Lena," Kadric called warningly – but she wasn't listening.

"Steph… you remember me, right?" she asked. Murphy thought she was missing something obvious. The expression on Vaisey's face, which Lena must have been mistaking for misremembering, looked more to Murphy like revulsion. But still, she kept walking toward the Gryffindors. Vaisey took a step back.

"Stay back!" he snapped, brandishing his wand at her now.

" _Vaisey_ …" a voice droned forebodingly from the other end of the line. Scorpius Malfoy was standing there, his gray eyes watching Vaisey like a hawk.

"You remember the tree, right?" Lena asked. "You went all the way up to the top, almost, but then you slipped and fell. I was so scared. I thought my best friend was going to die. But then you landed on your feet and survived. Maybe it was luck… maybe magic. But somehow… you survived. You always have…"

Vaisey seemed unmoved by any of this – and yet, he was not attacking for the moment, which was good.

"I couldn't figure it out," Lena said tearfully. "I was so stupid for not seeing it, and I'm so sorry…."

More silence.

And then, Lena asked a question. "It's Bole, isn't it?"

This got a reaction – a bad one.

"Don't – say – that – name," Vaisey grunted – and a _murderous_ expression flashed across his face as his outstretched wand hand began to tremble alarmingly.

"We can get… get you help," Lena choked out, and by now, she was close enough to Vaisey to reach out and touch him. But then, she turned her head in Murphy's direction. "Murphy ever tell you about… his uncle? His uncle's a hit wizard in Ireland. We know the Potters, too. Maybe they can help you, but you've got to stop this. _Please_ , Steph, I'm begging you…"

Vaisey's outstretched wand arm slackened just a bit. He closed his eyes and took a deep, rough breath.

"Get away from me."

Lena looked physically wounded by the words. "Steph—"

"I SAID GET AWAY!" Vaisey snapped. "I'm helping myself now."

And he raised his wand around Lena's ear and pointed it at the Progenies.

" _Lena!"_ Kadric shouted with concern. " _Move!"_

She didn't. The movement happened elsewhere in the hallway, as a door appeared in its center and suddenly burst open.

"What the—" Temple uttered. Two of the Progenies, though, reacted with their wands, Bletchley leaping out to put himself between the two Slytherin girls and the new assailants—

" _Expelliarmus!"_

A red jet of light hit Hawes's wand hand, sending his wand flying. Bletchley dodged a second, similar-looking curse, and came up ready to return fire.

" _Aculeo!"_

" _Protego!"_

And as fast as the initial flurry of action had started, it came to a sudden, tense halt. When the silence was broken, it was by Phillip Bletchley. "Go on – do it! You hate me anyways, so _do it_!"

It took a moment for Murphy to realize to whom Bletchley was speaking. Brynne didn't respond right away. She had her wand pointed in Bletchley's direction but wasn't moving. Her eyes rolled, and Murphy thought this was an oddly sardonic expression for her until her balance teetered precariously. Bletchley flinched, but any motion he was going to make stopped when an arm wrapped around Brynne to steady her. She recovered her awareness, and seemed to be alright. She gave a blue-eyed glance to the person holding her up.

"Potter," Temple spat. "Potter, Potter, _Potter_. Of course. Should've known when I saw _this_ idiot." He indicated Murphy with a jerk of his head.

But Murphy took it all in stride. "You don't have any friends – just followers. Otherwise, you'd get it."

James surveyed the scene, all of its parties, all of its players. In all of it, though, he took care never to loosen his left-arm grip. That was his job now; in a way, he guessed, it always had been. And as sad as the scene in front of him was, as much as it made him seethe inside, he couldn't help feeling this strange, incongruous… it wasn't quite happiness, but it was…

He felt alive – as alive than he'd been since that fateful afternoon, holding up his Quidditch cup with his teammates, right before the war drums sounded and everything came crashing down to hell around his ears.

He felt her struggle against his one-armed clutch – probably not visibly to those surrounding them, but perceptibly to him. It was a wordless, yet clear communication: She was going to be alright. Or, for now, alright enough. And, while there was a time and place to show vulnerability, now was not that time – and here was not that place. So he let her go.

"Phillip—" Brynne started, but Bletchley shook his head.

"You don't even have the guts, do you?" he asked. "Am I that pathetic to you?"

Brynne shook her head in reply.

"You chose the wrong side," she answered.

"I chose the only place I could go," Bletchley replied through his teeth. "What the hell do you want me to do?"

"The same thing I want for everybody else," Brynne answered. "Lower your wand and walk away."

Bletchley's lip curled – but it was Hawes who spoke. "It's that simple, is it? 'Lower your wand and walk away'? You act like we haven't been doing that for years. Centuries, even. Why should I – why should _any_ of us – have to accept responsibility for a Voldemort? Someone created him, but it sure wasn't me."

"What a joke!" Temple shouted from the other end of the hall. "You think this is just about one madman that's been dead for decades? Of course not. But it's funny that just about everything that's gone wrong with Britain in the last fifty years or so has come from your side."

"Is that what Wenster's been telling you?" snapped Hawes. "I'll bet he left out the part where he tried to have our entire bloody house held hostage. This isn't the first time he's raised hell like this…"

"Oh, god, you're so deluded," Temple groaned. "We wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for your mate Claudius trying to _murder_ Professor Longbottom—"

"First of all, that wasn't Claudius. He was framed," Hawes snarled. James looked at Hawes very intently. He was right, of course… but how did Hawes know? _Did_ Hawes know for sure? Or was it just something about which he felt very strongly? "But for Longbottom, Wenster, you lot… it was easy to punish a Slytherin because that's what everyone assumes. Gryffindors are always talking justice, chivalry… but you've got an innocent bloke locked up in Azkaban just because you hate us that much. Doesn't sound very chivalrous to me."

"You're raving," Temple said.

"You want to come a bit closer, then, Temple?" Hawes asked forebodingly. "Say that to my face and see what the hell I do to you."

"You're the only one that believes that story, Hawes," Temple deadpanned. "That's because people like you always have some sort of excuse as to why a crook isn't a crook. It's in your blood, I guess. When's your old man out again? Couple of years?"

"My father did some underhanded things, sure." Hawes puffed out his chest a bit, which, judging by Temple's expression, was _not_ the reaction he'd been expecting. "We all might not be here if he hadn't. His knowledge of the underworld was essential in the war effort. Dumbledore _and_ Minister Shacklebolt called on him directly for information. Where was _your_ father, Temple? What was _he_ doing during the war?"

Temple chuckled and smiled. It was terrifying.

"You lot never change, I guess," he said. "He was a Muggle – obviously you know that, or you wouldn't have brought him up. But unlike your dad, he stuck around. Of course, in _your_ world, his being a Muggle with honor still makes him inferior to your wizard deadbeat crook."

"You lot always think it's about blood status," Hawes accused, shaking his head. "You all need to stop whinging all the damn time like you're the only ones with problems."

"I'm 'whinging' now, is it? People _died_ because of their blood status," Temple recounted. "The Ministry of Magic chased my mother all around Britain because her parents had been Muggles and they said she had stolen her magic power. Like you can 'steal' the ability to do magic. How ridiculous is that? You can spin it any way you like – but Slytherins and their pure-blood mania almost ruined this country. People like Zabini's parents—"

"You shut up right now!" A scream rang from the side of the Progenies. James didn't look for its source but felt himself nudged sideways as someone broke through their line to run at Temple and his cohort.

"Amara, stop!" Bletchley's voice warned, very much in vain.

James watched. Temple hesitated. Vaisey slid in front of Temple and did neither. " _Expelliarmus!"_

Amara Zabini, with her taller-than-usual-for-a-thirteen-year-old-girl frame, seemed to take forever to fall backward. When she hit the ground, her wand clattered to the floor not far away. She scrabbled on the ground to grab hold of it, punctuating her effort with a tearful, almost feral snarl. Just as her fingers neared the stick, a foot – Vaisey's foot – intervened, kicking her wand out of her reach, toward one of the walls.

Vaisey let out a laugh. "That didn't turn out how you'd planned, did it?" Amara was trying to rise, but could truly do nothing, as Vaisey had the business end of his wand pointed at the soft under her chin.

Wren Audrey, who had been silent up to this point, could take no more. "Eamonn."

"Vaisey…" Temple warned hesitantly. "That's enough, mate. She can't defend herself."

"Yeah? Neither could I," Vaisey muttered. And he broke his gaze into Amara's scared eyes to glance in the direction of Hawes.

"Don't you dare…" Hawes' eyes were wide, his pupils narrow. "Don't do it."

Bletchley was not as calm. "This your idea of Gryffindor courage? Huh?!"

"Bletchley, _shut up!"_ Hawes snapped, and for the first time, he sounded panicked. "Vaisey, you want me? I'm right here! Leave her out of it."

"Oh, no. _Hell_ , no. You don't get to negotiate now," Vaisey snarled. "You did what you did last year because you thought I was weak and powerless. You never thought it'd come back on you – _ever_! God, I wish you could see your face right now."

James's eyes locked on Brynne, who was surveying the situation. He could practically feel the conflict radiating off of her from a few feet away. Amara Zabini, he knew, had a reputation for being a bully, and had even given Brynne herself a hard time their first year together. Her parents also had awful reputations in wizarding Britain.

Despite all of that, James could tell that Brynne knew Amara didn't deserve this. After all, Amara herself was simply a product of the less-than-stellar way her parents had raised her. But she, like most other sons and daughters, hardly saw what the rest of the world saw in her father and mother. She simply saw 'Mum' and 'Dad.' James himself, in a way, knew exactly what that was like. But this wasn't his call.

He leaned forward, trying not to move too suddenly, lest Vaisey notice and panic. When he was close enough that he thought Brynne could hear him, he whispered her name.

She didn't turn around, but there was a raising of her head and a slight stiffening of her posture that indicated that she had heard him.

" _Whatever you do… I'm with you_."

Her nod was barely perceptible, but the reassurance seemed to embolden her. Her fists clenched, and she appeared to swallow as she steeled herself.

She never had the chance to make a move.

A pair of arms gripped Vaisey around the middle. The reaction in Vaisey's eyes was equal parts murderous and confused. But whatever he had been planning on doing, it was brought once again to a halt.

Maybe the tense situation had wrought some sort of higher awareness from James's senses. Maybe it was because he had been conditioned to hear unfriendly noises, like the distinct whir of an oncoming Bludger in whipping winds. But there was a high-pitched hiss and crackle. It gave him just enough time to launch himself forward into Brynne and knock them both to the floor. A red jet of light sailed over their heads, slowly enough for both of them to watch. It hit Vaisey in the belly, where the pair of robed arms had been clutched around him.

Two distinct screams sounded, then more than a fair bit of yelling and colorful interjections ( _"That was a cheap shot, you f—")._ Incantations, then bangs, yells, and thuds. Right in front of him, Vaisey was standing, his own hand over his stomach. Walking toward him gingerly, a few feet in front of them, was Lena Urquhart.

James saw her mouth move. But it only took one look at the eyes of Stephan Vaisey to realize that, if his ears had been open to conversation, they were no longer. He raised his wand.

James coughed as Brynne, in an effort to free herself from under his weight, elbowed him between the ribs. Wand in hand, she tore for the place Lena was standing, already shouting an incantation.

Brynne got to Lena's side just in time, but the dome of light that had erected itself around the two girls quickly shattered and both were thrown back immeasurably fast.

Even with James's Quidditch reflexes, the force of another human being colliding with him at such speed nearly upended him. He managed to grip one of the two and break her fall, though when he did it she began coughing horribly. Over that cough, though, he could hear Murphy's voice, incanting, " _Aresto Momentum!"_

" _Concordia,"_ the girl in his arms muttered between her coughs. Then, she repeated it with a delirious shout: " _Concordia! Get to the room!"_

No one else knew what she was talking about, but James did. He started pulling her backward, making sure not to take his eyes off either side of the sudden skirmish. On the Gryffindor end, he saw Vaisey suddenly forced to defend himself against a white-haired boy, barely able to block the constant onslaught of hex after hex. Then, though, a red jet of light struck Vaisey's assailant in the side, knocking him to the ground. Temple emerged from the shadows, set eyes on James and Brynne, and fired.

" _Protego!"_ James yelled. He flinched as Temple's unfriendly curse approached, but the protective dome of light from his first successful Shield Charm held fast. Then, though, he realized he had heard another voice chorus with his…

Murphy staggered in front of James, deflecting a hex.

"Go!" shouted Murphy. "Get the hell outta here!"

Meanwhile, Rowan (ducking away from one of those unfriendly spells) darted past James, making a mad dash in the direction of Amara Zabini, who was seated against a wall, looking like a deer in headlights, not attempting to raise her wand for either side. James noticed at a point that he was no longer guiding Brynne back toward the wall, but dragging her. He glanced around her cheek to look at her face. She had a cut lip – but, more alarmingly, she was _out cold_.

He staggered to the wall and leaned against it. " _Concordia,"_ he muttered. Someone leapt in front of him. There was a flash of light, a shout. He felt and heard the wall rumble. Then, in a horrifying instant, his balance failed him. The wall seemed to open to swallow both of them whole. He felt the pain of unbraced impact against his shoulder, but the hard surface he hit gave way once again, and in an instant he realized he was toppling. His instinct gripped the lifeless body in his arms all the more tightly; but he had no spare hand to break his fall.

His shoulder took another beating as he hit the ground. And everything after that was quiet.

A momentary rush of fear prevented him from opening his eyes in the new, strangely quiet space. He fought it back, and saw that the empty, used-looking, high-ceilinged room was intact, just as they had left it moments ago.

" _It worked_ ," James muttered, forgetting himself for a moment. When the weight in his arms did not reply, it prompted a fresh wave of panic. He gently turned her onto her back, his stomach sinking immeasurably far and his heart leaping into his throat. "Brynne…?"

Silence. He cradled her. Hesitantly, he leaned his face down closer to hers to check for any sign of breath.

A gasp. Her blue eyes snapped open. They were trembling in their sockets as she took in and let out deep, rattling, uneven breaths. It was only instinct that told James what was happening – and it was only instinct that told him what to do next.

"Brynne," he called softly, lowering his face into her view. "Look at me. _Look at me_."

Her darting blue eyes stabilized on his. Her breathing slowed.

"You alright?" he asked.

She didn't speak – maybe she wasn't able yet – but reached a hand to his face again, and sat up to touch her forehead to his. Her eyes shut and open in rather forceful blinks, if such things existed. Her teeth grit in effort, as if she was physically struggling against her inability to focus.

"James," she slurred.

"It's me," he reassured her. At least, he hoped he was being reassuring. He felt her forehead rub vaguely against his brow. She was nodding – or trying to.

"I know," she whispered, locking eyes on his resolutely, as if they were her only lifeline between her and something awful happening.

Brynne gripped hard onto James's robes as she tried to stand. Slowly, James followed her, guiding her upward. When she reached her feet again, it was a bit unsteadily, and her need for either balance or comfort (perhaps both) prompted her to lean back against him.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this, James," she said – but James would have none of it.

"Don't be," James said. Almost out of a newfound instinct, James clutched her closer to himself. "I'm here because I want to be."

THUMP.

The door at the entrance to the room shook. Instantly, James's senses went into overdrive. Brynne wrested herself free of him and raised her wand shakily. James jumped between her and the door.

" _No_ ," he said. "You don't have anything left. Stay behind me – and don't you _dare_ think of using another Shield Charm."

THUMP.

"James…" Brynne called him.

"We're getting out of here," James said. "I don't know what happens after we do, and I don't care right now. But we're both leaving alive." He raised his wand toward the door. The tip glowed and crackled with golden light.

THUMP.

James grit his teeth. " _Well, come on if you're coming!"_ he snarled at the rattling doors, his shout echoing off the cavernous walls and ceiling of the empty hall. " _I don't have all bloody day!"_

The door swung open. James's eyes flashed.

" _BRACH—"_

" _HEEEEEEEEEEYYYY!"_

A familiar voice caused James to pull up short.

"Calm down," the voice insisted, its owner emerging through the threshold with his hands up. " _Breathe_. Paranoid's not a good look on you, mate."

Slowly, James lowered his wand. Barely, he won the fight against his legs, which tried very hard to give out underneath him.

Whatever had happened out there had done Richard Murphy's face no favors. One of his eyes had gone an unpleasant indigo right under the socket. One of his lips was unevenly thick and when he showed his teeth in a grimace, most on that side seemed to be red as well. Lastly and most alarmingly, his hair was a shambles.

"You two alright?" he slurred. He seemed, to James's rather untrained eye, at least, to be fully conscious – it was just that half of his bottom lip was about three times larger than normal.

"Damn sight better than you, obviously," James answered breathlessly. Even in obvious discomfort, Murphy couldn't resist attempting to crack a smile. "How'd you find us here?"

"I heard the password, obviously," Murphy replied.

James felt a yank on his robes and nearly fell over.

"What about the others?" Brynne asked, now on her feet again.

Murphy replied, his face now a bit somber, "We got off pretty easy. Malfoy got whacked over the dome, Rowan Lester blew his ankle—" ("Oh, _God_ ," James heard Brynne mutter, clearly concerned) – "…and I think Lena's having an emotional breakdown, but other than that… nothing a quick trip to the Hospital Wing couldn't fix."

"Malfoy?" Brynne repeated. "I thought he was with…"

She looked at James – who had no answers.

Murphy frowned. "In any case, the Guard and the Progenies all ran off, but there's probably gonna be hell to pay at this point. We should get everyone in here where it's safe so we can talk about what happens next. The Ravenclaws, too."

"Ravenclaws?" James repeated in shock. "Wait – what?"

"I don't know, either," Murphy said, a bit distractedly. "I'll go invite them in. You two stay here and rest."

Murphy departed, leaving the two alone again in the large, silent space.

"Ravenclaws," James repeated again, a bit bemused. "Was that you?"

"No," Brynne said simply, sounding just as flummoxed as he was. She let out a sigh and he felt her grip around him release. She walked into view, staring silently at the door.

It was several moments before James dared ask, "What are you thinking about?"

"…How to solve the problem." There was an edge in Brynne's voice that said she thought James should have known the answer to that question already.

The snag with that, though, was the answer wasn't the one he was looking for. In fact, it was the one thing he didn't much want to hear. "Don't you ever think about anything else?"

"Of course I did," Brynne answered plaintively. "I thought a lot about… what happened that day. It seemed… it was… awful."

"Why?" James asked. "Why would you do that to yourself?"

And Brynne turned her entire body to face him.

"I'm tired, James," she said, and the look he saw on her face broke his heart into a hundred pieces. 'Tired' was not a strong enough word. Maybe it was because she had been bottling most of her stress until this moment, but suddenly she looked a century old. Her eyes were oddly shadowed, like she had been deprived of sleep for several days on end. She looked like a candle in a storm – like one more gust of wind would cause her light to go out. "I get so tired sometimes. I'm past where just my own will can keep me going."

 _You don't have to do this, then,_ James thought. He never said it aloud, though; he knew it would do no good.

"But the reason I keep going back is I remember something other than the pain. I remember _you_ ," she said. "I remember how you crawled on your hands and knees to try to save me…"

"I didn't get there," James reminded her. But then, Brynne reached out very quickly and took both of his hands.

"But _you did_ ," she answered insistently. "You did. Beal could have killed me if he wanted to. He didn't. He wanted… he wanted to break me. But when I saw you reaching out for me, I felt… safe. Like if I survived, or even if I didn't, I would be alright. And every time… every time I was burning out, or I started to feel like it's hopeless, I remembered that. I remembered you. It helps with feeling tired… and the fear."

"…Fear?" James repeated.

"Do you think I'm not scared of anything?" Brynne queried.

James shook his head reasonably. "Everyone's scared of something. What is it?"

"Losing," she replied simply. "I'm scared of us losing. What about you?"

James had never truly had her ask him directly. What, indeed, was his boggart in the wardrobe? What was the identity of the specter casting the largest shadow over his dreams? He had never found the words to put to it – but as he spoke them now, he knew them to be naked truth:

"Winning," James answered. This startled Brynne for a moment, but then he explained. "I'm scared that we'll win… and that I'll come looking for you and there won't be anything left."

An invisible vice gripped iron-strong around his throat. A burn flashed across his eyes like a struck match. He turned his head away from her and shut them tight, trying to dam a flash flood that had come out of nowhere. Even then, it teased the corners of his eyelids, tried to find a crevice or crack to escape.

But then something strange happened.

Unseen, unbidden, closeness and a foreign warmth came to rest on his lips. In the ensuing silence, it was only the sound and the sensation of breath other than his own that alerted him to what was happening. He pried his eyes open.

Twin skies with black suns stared up into and through him, and he had a chance to take in their details. From a distance, he had seen a beautiful blue. Now, he saw icy, silvery cracks and crevices in their minuteness.

Soon, though, they drifted shut, and his own followed. Their lips crossed and bumped clumsily, like a complex dance where both parties involved had a pair of left feet. It occurred to him that this probably wasn't what one would call 'textbook.' It occurred to him that he hadn't even ever read the textbook. He might have done if he'd known this was coming. Or if he ever could have found the damn textbook to begin with.

She threw her arms around the small of his back. Then he remembered that he had arms and hands, too, and it occurred to him that _maybe_ he might consider doing something with them other than standing there with them dangling at his sides like a slow-brained baboon.

 _Shoulders? Hair? What would she like best?  
_

He became acutely aware of his lankiness, his gawky, mid-teenage-incomplete-growth-spurt limbs, how his arms were an inch or maybe three out of proportion with the rest of his body. As he finally decided to reach up one hand and cup her cheek, he remembered with a pang of horror, just how abnormally bloody _large_ his hands were. He'd always had 'good Quidditch hands' – or at least that was what his mum had called them when he was growing up. Good for catching Quaffles and Snitches – not great for caressing a face.

It was all wrong… God, it was all wrong…

And yet, it was _perfect_. Because it was _her_ , and that fact made every other detail of the thing immaterial.

Her mouth finally closed around his bottom lip, pulled on it lightly, and then escaped.

When he got a good look at her face again, he was surprised – even a bit panicked – about her relative lack of expression. In fact, she wasn't even meeting his eyes. She had a blank, unreadable look on her face, a thousand-yard stare aimed somewhere else.

Then she looked at him again. "That's why I need you here," she said, at almost a whisper.

She strode forward to walk past him, but not before leaning her head on his shoulder silently for a long moment.

As she stepped out of view, he heard the almighty creak of the great doors at the head of the hall swinging open.


	14. Chapter 14: Outlaws

_**Author's note:**_ _Hello FPB readers!_

 _Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I imagine several of you have been making a note of how long it's been since the last update, and perhaps even sadly wondering if I've abandoned the story altogether. Well, I can assure you that I have not. Life just happened. Not all of it bad. Most of it not bad, actually._

 _To make a long story short (even though that's not typically my forte as evidenced by my stories' rather gaudy word counts), I started a new full-time job in the summer, among other things. Funny thing, how having a forty-hour job leaves you with less time to daydream and create than you had before. I've been writing during that span, although I had a couple of chapters and parts of chapters come out of me that were a bit…_

 _Well, let's be blunt. They were crap. I wasn't satisfied with them when I read them back. And if I don't like reading something of mine, I think it's unfair to expect any of you to like it any better._

 _The fairly important last scene from last chapter (I reaaaaaaally hope you didn't just skip ahead), for example. You don't want to know how many times I re-wrote that. Just suffice it to say I'd been planning that moment since about when I finished the first book, as well as its placement. So, a few years of meticulous tweaking, including scrapping the whole scene about a dozen times. Originally, it was going toward the end (bit of development trivia for any of you that care), but sometimes a story demands something in such a way that doing anything else would be doing the story a disservice. As the vision for the second half of TSR started to come together for me (which, admittedly, was only fairly recently), I realized a lot of what happened in Chapter 13 had to happen then and not later._

 _This really wasn't a short explanation, was it? Okay, the TL;DR version: I'm still alive, still writing, just been busy with life things and trying to make the story better. A million thanks to everyone that's hung in there and been patient._

 _Now, without any further ado – Chapter 14._

Chapter 14: An Assembly of Outlaws

"I'm sure they're fine, Al. Knowing him, he probably just went out for a ride on his broom or something."

Sylvia's voice was strangely distant, like a badly tuned wireless, with his thoughts themselves as the static between him and the words she was saying. Comfort seemed strange – in a way, almost ill-fitting – coming out of her mouth. It was sickly sweet, rather like far too much cake. She wasn't an unkind person at heart. Albus knew that. They wouldn't have been friends otherwise… but she seemed out of place trying to speak a language that was not her own. Usually, it was her wit and dry sense of humour that did the best job at bringing a needed smile to his face. But lately, she had been walking on eggshells, seemingly afraid of saying the wrong thing. Albus hated that. He hated that she obviously felt she needed to be overly sensitive for his sake. He hated that she no longer felt like she could be herself because she was worried about him.

 _But none of this is your fault,_ he thought to himself – reciting in his head something she had told him weeks ago. _None of this is your fault._

 _I don't care whose fault it is. I just want it to stop. I want my brother and my sister back. And I want Rose back. And Scorpius, too._

 _That_ part was his fault, he thought. There was a point where he knew Scorpius better than anyone else did; he should have known Scorpius had some reason for his actions other than what seemed obvious. Albus could make all the excuses he wanted. He hadn't trusted his friend enough – enough, even, to ask him what was going on. And Scorpius likely would have told him, because Scorpius trusted him. And Albus would have said that he didn't know how good an idea it was, but that he understood.

That is, if he had it to do all over again, and if he'd known what the right thing was.

"Maybe Brynne and James were right," he murmured, mostly to himself. "Maybe I should've just minded my own business."

"How is it not your business?" Sylvia asked briskly. "This is your school, too. You've got to live here. More importantly, your family's involved. How's that not your business?"

Albus sighed heavily. "I don't know… it just seems like, every time I try to do something, I screw it up."

Sylvia had been sitting next to him on the floor near the fireplace – but now she jumped quickly to her feet with a huff. Albus looked up at her for a second and then cringed.

"I wish you didn't hate yourself so much," she said, her face turned pointedly away from him. Albus could hear a weariness in her voice that he'd never heard before, and that was what did it.

"Go on, then," Albus said. It came out angrier-sounding than he'd meant it – but maybe that was for the best. "If you're sick of me, just go."

"It's not that simple," Sylvia countered.

Albus stood, and tried not to be angry at her. His temper was always so close to the surface nowadays. Honestly, he couldn't name the one thing or person that was causing it, either. "It's never simple, is it?"

Something crossed Sylvia's face. Perhaps contemplation. She bit her lip. An abnormal, yet somehow familiar feeling bubbled up somewhere in the pit of Albus's stomach as he watched her in deep thought. It was almost like two dueling, opposite panics – fear of what would happen if he stayed there, and a fear, somewhat stronger, of what would happen if he left…

But finally, Sylvia spoke.

"The thing is…" she started, in a low murmur.

"POTTER!"

Whatever Sylvia had been planning on saying or doing, the sudden shout brought it to an abrupt halt. She and Albus both turned their heads toward the general direction of the noise, which was fortunate. Crossing the common room from the portrait hole that served as the entrance was (and it took Albus a moment to recognize him because of the bruises) Stephan Vaisey. His face was a shambles, like he'd been in a fight (another fight) and come off worse. One of his eyes was black and reduced to almost a slit, but one Albus could see somewhat clearly was trained on Albus and Sylvia as he made a beeline across the common room.

" _Hey."_ A taller girl with shimmering white-blond hair interposed herself in between Vaisey and his two fellow third years. Albus's eyes darted around the room trying to figure out where the familiar newcomer had come from. He'd never even seen her. "I don't know what your problem is, but you'd better bring it down a notch. _Now._ "

"Move, Weasley," another boy's voice joined the conversation, calm and cold. "We're on business from Professor Wenster."

Albus angled his head around the mass of bodies in front of him to see Eamonn Temple approaching. Maybe he'd never paid much attention to Temple's gait before and had thus never noticed, but it certainly looked like the sixth-year Prefect had a bit of a hitch going. It wasn't quite a full limp, but his strides were uneven and tentative, like he'd suffered some sort of injury and was trying very hard not to put much weight on one of his legs.

It didn't take long for Albus to put two and two together: Godric's Guard had been in a scrap somewhere, and it hadn't gone well. But what did that have to do with him?

"Go and get him, then." Temple, Albus thought, had clearly forgotten whom he was addressing. Weasleys, as a rule, didn't scare easily – and Dominique was no exception.

Temple's nostrils flared, as if unsurprised by Dominique's defiance but no less irritated. "In case you can't tell by looking at either of us, we've got a bit of a situation on our hands. We need to ask Potter some questions."

"You can ask them from right there," Dominique replied calmly, reaching a hand to wipe something off her cheek.

Temple's lip curled. "Potter… your brother has committed several serious infractions. We need your help to bring him to justice."

Almost out of nowhere, Albus found a seething hatred straightening his back as he laid his eyes on the Prefect. "Not sure what you're talking about. Even if I did, do you think I'd give my own brother up? On top of that… you threatened my sister yesterday. What if I'm not in a helpful mood?"

"Don't be an idiot," Temple said. "When we dig your brother and his friends out of their little hidey-hole on the seventh floor, they're all going before the Panel. And if you don't help us, you're going to join him."

This _did_ make Albus's heart trip over itself for a second, but…

"That's ridiculous," Sylvia exclaimed. "He's been with me this entire time today. How would he have any idea what James was up to?"

"Shut your mouth," Vaisey snapped. "Nobody was asking you."

"First of all," Temple spoke firmly, "where's Hugo Weasley?"

"What do you want with Hugo?" Albus immediately questioned.

"He led us into a trap," Temple explained. "Hugo Weasley gave us a tip that the Progenies were going up to the seventh floor corridor to investigate the Come and Go Room."

"And when you got up there, they attacked you?" Sylvia asked. "What did you expect to happen?"

"Shut it," Vaisey interjected again.

"Sylvia…" Albus murmured in an attempt to dissuade her.

"That's stupid," Sylvia murmured in an aside to Albus like no one else was even there. "How's it a trap if someone tells you exactly what you're going to find up there?"

"Five points from Gryffindor – but you're welcome to keep explaining since you seem to know an awful lot about the situation for someone that _wasn't there_ ," Temple snarled.

"I invoke objection," Dominique said almost immediately. "You can't just take points from someone if they say something you don't like. Now we'll have to meet with Professor Wenster to get his ruling."

Temple grit his teeth and scoffed. "To hell with it. It's not worth the trouble. As I was saying – we expected to find the Progenies up there, of course. But not a group of mixed Gryffindors, Slytherins, and Ravenclaws – an illegal gathering, might I add – that I have reason to believe were put together by your brother to undermine the work of Godric's Guard. I believe Hugo Weasley knew they were there and used the opportunity to lead us into an unfavorable situation."

"Oh, and it gets worse," snarled Vaisey. Pointing to his black eye, he asked, " _You see this?"_

"Hard not to miss it," Sylvia remarked.

" _This_ was given to me by Scorpius Malfoy," he growled, continuing to point at the black-and-indigo bruise on his face as if it wasn't cringeworthily obvious against his extremely pale skin. "He betrayed Godric's Guard."

"Our own fault, really," Temple scoffed in addition. "Should've seen it coming. Bad blood will out."

Albus wanted so badly to protest this line of thinking, but knew he'd be wasting his breath on these two. At the same time, he knew that only one thing – one person – would have prompted Scorpius to blow his cover so spectacularly. Temple and Vaisey meant to shake down Albus for information – but it was Albus who was learning and piecing things together.

"I've got something special for him if he decides to show his face in this tower again," Vaisey said bitterly. "Both him and Lester…"

"Don't waste your time," Temple sniffed. "They're all going to be expelled anyway."

Vaisey's nostrils flared. Then he looked up at Temple. "What if I don't think that's good enough?"

Temple grimaced. "You'll have to take it up with Wenster and the Headmaster, then. That's over our heads."

Vaisey scoffed. "That's half the problem," he muttered to himself.

Temple raised his eyebrows. "I'm more curious to why James Potter would turn on us."

And he set his eyes on Albus again.

"You act like I'd know about everything James is doing," Albus said, not meeting either Gryffindor's eye. "He hardly ever tells me anything."

"You expect me to believe that?" Temple snarled.

"Of course I don't – but it's the truth," Albus replied, unable to avoid betraying a hint of sadness in his voice. Maybe, just maybe, if James hadn't locked Albus out of the loop, he would have been able to help somehow. Maybe this wouldn't be happening…

"We're wasting our time with this one," Vaisey said after several moments of silence.

"I'll be the judge of that," Temple reprimanded him.

"Because you know him so well, right?" Vaisey's response was bitingly sarcastic. "Trust me on this. We've slept under the same roof for almost three years now. No one tells Albus Potter the truth about anything important because his ears are too fragile to take it."

Albus felt a hot surge of anger run through his body and arms as his fists clenched together. This only elicited a chuckle from Vaisey.

"You see that?" he remarked to Temple. "He can't even take hearing about himself. Even with the name Potter, you're useless."

"You weren't so hard when those two Slytherins were pounding your face bloody, were you? Don't be jealous of his family just because your dad didn't love you," Sylvia piped in out of nowhere.

Everything went alarmingly still. Vaisey made one of those alarming facial expressions – a smile that wasn't quite a smile, on a face that trembled unsettlingly for several moments. He turned away and then walked several paces away, muttering something to himself. Meanwhile, Temple glared at Sylvia for several moments… but then he turned away and went toward Vaisey. With a gentler hand than anyone could have expected, he gripped the younger boy's shoulder and silently led him from the common room.

Dominique let out a ragged breath and then looked over her shoulder at Sylvia.

"You shouldn't have said that," she scolded her reluctantly. "You know his father's a sore point."

Albus expected Sylvia to bite back and say something about how Vaisey had deserved it. But instead, she let out a sigh and looked as remorseful as Albus had ever seen her look for anything. "I know," she admitted. "I just couldn't… I just couldn't listen to it anymore."

Dominique didn't seem to have anything else to say to Sylvia after that. Instead, probably seeing the look on Albus's face, she addressed him instead.

"This thing with James…" Dominique uttered very uncertainly. "I'm sure it's not nearly as bad as Temple's making it out to be. I hope not, anyway…"

And she walked off a bit distractedly, clearly troubled by what she had seen and heard. Meanwhile, Sylvia was looking away from Albus. He called her – but, for a moment, she didn't respond. She stared wordlessly at the fireplace, clenching and unclenching her hands.

When Sylvia finally spoke, she began by calling Vaisey something quite rude indeed. It even took Albus aback for a moment. Even though Sylvia wasn't exactly afraid to experiment with certain vocabulary, he'd never heard her use _that_ word before. It got him to listen, more than usual – which might have been the point. "I don't believe a damn thing he says about you. And you shouldn't either."

She never looked at him when she said any of this – just stared at the fireplace, taking several deep breaths.

"You wonder why we didn't do anything to help him last year – _that's_ why," she murmured to herself.

Albus swallowed. "I should have."

Sylvia whirled around. "What? Are you mad?"

"He saw us that day," Albus reasoned. "I know he did. That's why he hates me. Because I could have helped and I stood there and watched. What the hell am I doing?"

"Some people don't deserve your help," Sylvia said.

"It's not about who deserves it," Albus countered. "I just… maybe if I had done something… anything…"

"This isn't your fault," Sylvia repeated. He could tell she was getting tired of repeating it.

"I know it's not my fault," he answered. "I just wonder if I could have done something… better. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered… but at least I could say that I tried."

Sylvia sighed. "Are you going to try to solve everyone's problems?"

"I would if I could," Albus looked down absentmindedly at his hands. "But I can't. And I know I can't. But also… I know I'm sick of standing there and watching."

 **James**

James Potter thought of some more words, then bit them back. Everyone, it seemed, had something to say – but no one truly wanted to be the first. Not now. Not with the horror of what had happened so fresh. This silence, this time for taking everything in and giving reverence to their reality… it was needed. Any loud words seemed almost profane, sacrilegious.

The muffled sounds of a single young girl sobbing gave apt voice to most of the room's thoughts. Across the empty hall, the pale pink of her face was buried in another set of robes, making her form appear from a distance to be a uniform mask of blackness. The only exception was the arm of her comforter, pale itself, draped furtively across her back as if uncertain it belonged there. The owner of the arm leaned against one of the hall's several pillars, blond hair shimmering almost pure white in the ambient light, save for a spot near his temple that was matted and discolored from a fresh head wound. His gaze was blank, unfocused, only breaking out of its doldrums to look down at the girl crying into his chest.

It was in those silent moments that James came to realize that he and Scorpius Malfoy truly were not all that different. He was similarly driven toward a singular purpose, similarly loving toward his family, and similarly fierce in that love. He was not bad at all. He never had been. In fact, he was better than many. Maybe better than James himself.

Someone crossed his point of view and, with a groaned swear, flumped down into a seated position next to him.

"Effing…" Richard Murphy snarled haltingly. "…Your mate Bletchley's a deceptively good shot. Got me right in my damn ribs."

He let out a breath and winced.

"How's it feel?" asked James.

"How do you think it feels?" Murphy asked, his pained expression giving way to a shadow of a smirk. "Hurts like hell."

A moment of silence. The question – and the answer – had been referring to more than one thing.

"Sorry, mate," James said.

But Murphy shook his head. "It was just a shock, is all. I should've expected it, really. Couldn't ask her to wait around on me. Not after what I did."

James frowned. "You're sure…?"

"As sure as I can be without asking her," Murphy replied. "Guess it's all a moot point. I'd bet five Galleons we're not going to be here when the sun comes up on Monday."

"You think they'd expel us?" James asked. "I doubt it. We'll probably be serving detention every weekend until we graduate. Weekends around here are bollocks now anyway."

"Say we are, though," Murphy argued solemnly. "What do we do then?"

"That's easy," James said. "We go after Beal. We find the bastard and stop him before he does any more damage."

"So we spend all our time combing Britain for one bloke?"

"Britain, Europe… the whole world, if I've got to," James replied bluntly.

At this, Murphy heaved a sigh.

"Honestly," Murphy said, "I'm not sure if I've got that in me. But maybe we won't need to. Our Aurors are strong enough, right?"

"What if I don't want the Aurors to handle it?"

Murphy seemed to need a moment for this question to sink in. When it finally did, he turned his head toward James. A grave expression was on his wounded face. "So… you want revenge."

"You're saying I shouldn't? Not even a little?" questioned James. "Look around you. Look at all the people that are hurting because of what he did last year. Even if this _whole_ situation wasn't basically his fault… he tortured Brynne. He still is, in some ways. I couldn't forgive that if I wanted to."

"Maybe you're right," Murphy conceded, after a moment's contemplation. "Maybe that's your path. I don't know…" He looked down at the floor, as if ashamed. "…I don't know if it's mine."

James understood – because he'd been thinking the same thing for months. "It's not personal for you like it is for me. I get it. And, honestly, I'd rather not put anyone else at risk. So… what about you?"

"I'd probably help out at the apothecary or something. Mum could use the extra hands," Murphy answered. "Cole's not around anymore and the girl Mum hired last year moved to London and took a job at St. Mungo's…"

"Sounds boring," James admitted.

"You'd be surprised," replied Murphy, the faintest shadow of a smirk on his face.

Things went silent again – well, almost. A fresher, louder, wave of weeping overtook the girl leaning into Malfoy's chest.

" _Bloody hell!_ That's _not helping_ , alright?!" the voice of a boy called from elsewhere in the large room. James watched as Scorpius Malfoy's expression changed almost instantaneously, like a switch had been flipped.

"Matty—" another boy's faint voice called uncertainly from elsewhere in the large hall.

"We don't have time for this!" the first boy, who sounded a bit younger, retorted quite loudly. "If we don't leave here, someone's going to come to us. We need to be figuring out some sort of plan."

The boy walked into James's view, stopping not far from Malfoy. He was blond, bespectacled, a bit wide but not quite rotund. Malfoy, meanwhile, got to his feet and came face to face with the other boy.

"Who are you?" Malfoy asked.

The other boy frowned. "We've known each other almost three years, Malfoy. It's Matthias Albertine."

"I know your name. You didn't answer my question," Malfoy countered, his voice teetering shakily on the edge of calm. " _Who are you?_ "

Matthias Albertine was silent.

"You think you've got the right to tell Lena to stop feeling because it makes you uncomfortable. Because 'we don't have time.' So I'm going to ask you again: _Who are you?_ "

More silence.

Scorpius scoffed bitterly, and when he began speaking again, it was mostly through gritted teeth. "Just what I thought. Don't you ever – again – in your _life_ – speak to her like that. If I hear it, or if I hear _about_ it… I promise you will have a _real_ reason to be afraid of me _._ "

He turned his back on Matthias and started to walk away.

"We _did_ just save your arse back there," Matthias said. "You could be a bit more grateful."

" _You_ should be grateful I'm not knocking your damn teeth in," Scorpius answered.

"Don't puff up at me, Malfoy," Matthias said. "I'm not the least bit scared of you."

"I haven't given you a reason," Scorpius answered. " _Yet._ "

"Well, give if a try if you think you're hard enough—"

"Both of you, _shut up!_ "

The girl that had been seated in silent contemplation in front of the fireplace jumped to her feet. Perhaps more in shock than a desire to actually follow her instructions, both boys went silent. The look she gave both as she walked toward them was a veritable tome of information about her mood. She looked equal parts weary, desperate, angry. Even on _her_ face, the expression was fearsome.

"Don't be fools," she said. "We're on the same side."

"You're making a lot of assumptions there," Scorpius said. "Just because I'm stuck in here with you lot doesn't mean I'm on your 'side' – wherever the hell _that_ is."

"Well, clearly you're not with Godric's Guard anymore, if you ever were," said Matthias.

"Doesn't mean I'm with you," Scorpius said stubbornly, glancing at Matthias.

Brynne's eyes did an impatient flick. James could see the moment where she realized that arguing with Scorpius was no longer worth the trouble. She tried to glance around him. "Lena…"

In the next instant, she had Scorpius Malfoy's wand pointed at her eyes. "You stay back. You've done enough damage."

"Damage," Brynne repeated, not so much as flinching with the wand in her face. "How's that?"

"You're a liar," he answered acidly. "Or maybe you're just delusional."

Brynne hardly reacted. "You care for Lena a lot, don't you?"

"What kind of question is that?" Malfoy snarled. Clearly the answer was 'yes', James thought, and clearly Malfoy took the implication of anything else being true as an insult. "That's the only reason I'm in here with you all."

"But she's a Slytherin," Brynne said simply.

"What the hell does that matter?" Malfoy asked fiercely. A long moment later, though, he lowered his wand and his head. "…That's different, though. She's family. I don't… you're giving people false hope. You can't expect Gryffindors and Slytherins to be friends."

"What about fellow wizards?" asked Brynne. "What about fellow humans? What if we got to _know_ people instead of assuming the worst about them?"

Malfoy sighed, and finally put his wand away. "It sounds nice. It really does. But people don't work that way."

"Some of them do," Brynne contended.

"Not enough," said Malfoy. "How many of you are there?" he queried, looking around the room. "Six in all?"

"Nine," Matthias Albertine corrected him. Malfoy whirled around to find, as James saw, that two more students were approaching to Matthias's side. Even Brynne seemed nonplussed. Matthias must have noticed her expression – an almost-smirk was on his face. "What, you thought we found you lot by some lucky accident?"

Brynne saw Matthias – and a taller boy that, to James, looked enough like Matthias that the two could have been related. The figure that drew the most attention, however, was that of a girl. She looked different yet clearly recognizable. Her hair, also blonde (James was starting to wonder if Ravenclaw favored blonde hair as a house trait), fell in a straight sheet down past her shoulders, and her bangs played above her bespectacled eyes. As usual, she had the vague smile characteristic of someone who knew something you did not.

"Serra," Brynne uttered, clearly taken aback.

"You look surprised to see me," Serra replied.

"Serra said you two knew each other," Matthias commented, more to Brynne than to Malfoy. "This is my brother, Mark."

Surprisingly, this seemed to ring a bell to Scorpius Malfoy. "Mark Albertine."

"That's me," the tallest Ravenclaw lad replied. James knew, from Serra bringing his name up in conversation before, that Mark Albertine was in fifth year.

"Heard an interesting rumor about you from Temple," Scorpius said. "He says you lost your badge."

Mark Albertine clicked his tongue a couple of times, shaking his head. "Not… quite accurate. More like I resigned."

"The first day of term?" Scorpius gave Mark an incredulous raised-eyebrow look.

"I'm sure you've all figured out by now, Prefects are supposed to enforce Headmaster Flitwick's new non-interaction rules." Mark Albertine had the air of someone going through the tedium of explaining something simple for the benefit of the less educated. "Boyd, the Head Boy, told me in our first meeting on the train. I didn't sign up for that. I told him this wasn't the school I grew up in. We never needed it before, so why should we need it now? Boyd said he'd report me to Flitwick for dereliction of duty – that I'd lose my badge. I put the badge in his hand myself and told him how and where to shove it."

"Good for you," Scorpius intoned – he couldn't quite get rid of the sneer in his voice.

"Let me guess – you think I could have done more good as a Prefect," Mark started.

"I think you could have stayed well out of it," Scorpius countered. "You're a Ravenclaw. It's not your fight."

"We'll be the judge of that, thanks," Mark parried.

"I hope it was worth it," Scorpius spat, sounding almost disdainful.

"A clear conscience – I can sleep at night and look at myself in the mirror in the morning," Mark answered. "So… yeah, I'd say so."

"Scorpius…"

Lena had stood to her feet. She approached Scorpius, but he met her halfway.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, barely audible, as he enveloped his younger cousin in a long-armed, almost smothering embrace. "This is my fault. I never should have let you near these people."

Surprisingly, Lena recoiled at this.

"Let me?" repeated Lena, sounding insulted. Her fists were clenched and she was no longer meeting Scorpius's eyes. "You don't understand anything, do you?"

"I don't understand why you keep getting hurt, and you keep going back," Scorpius replied. "Don't ask me to understand that."

"That's not Steph," Lena said very simply. "That's not the person I grew up with – but if he's in there somewhere, if there's just the tiniest _chance_ that he's in there somewhere, and I can get to him if we end this, then I have to keep trying because…"

She trailed off.

Scorpius shook his head. "You have no plan. You don't have any power. You don't have any – _anything_."

It galled James to admit it to himself, but Scorpius was right. Never mind the Godric's Guard and the Progenies – they probably had enough to take those groups on if they absolutely needed to. The _real_ problems were Headmaster Flitwick's edicts, and Professor Wenster's influence. The other Headteachers were younger, cowed somewhat by him. That political web was far too tangled for any one of them to be much help. If only there was someone who had no horse in the race, whose loyalty was firstly to Hogwarts and to its students…

"We have the Room," Brynne replied clearly. "And the Room – this one, at least – has a password. No one that doesn't know the password can get in."

"That's great, in theory," Serra pointed out. "But we can't really leave, either. They may not be able to get into the room but the location of it isn't a secret. Someone will be waiting for us on the other side of that door. Also, we don't have any food in here."

This revelation panicked Matthias, who whirled around and looked at Serra. "Are you joking?" Serra promptly and solemnly shook her head. Matthias deflated.

Mark grimaced, and glanced at his younger brother "Well, this should help with the diet."

"Sod off," Matthias deadpanned. "I don't think this is what Dad meant.'"

Mark frowned. "Good point."

"So they get to just post someone outside the door until they can starve us out? How does a Room of Requirement not account for food?" Scorpius asked.

"That's not the Room's fault. Even an exceptionally powerful magical artifact – or place, for that matter – is subject to certain rules of magic," explained Serra. "One of those rules is you can't conjure or Transfigure food out of something that wasn't already that food."

Scorpius tilted his head. Serra grimaced.

"Gamp's Law of… _ugh_ , can't remember the whole name. I know it was Gamp, though. Madam McGonagall explained it to me once my first year—"

"Madam McGonagall." 

Brynne repeated the name and brought everything to a screeching halt.

"Yes… she was Headmistress before Professor Flitwick took over," Serra explained. "She retired the year before—"

" _I know that_ ," Brynne interrupted, sounding needled the way she always did when she felt like Serra was being condescending. "What is she doing now?"

"Anyone's guess," Serra answered. "Why does it matter? Wherever she is, it's not here. She can't help us."

"She's one of the few Professors Flitwick will listen to," Brynne pointed out. "They've known each other for years. Maybe if we could get her an owl or something—"

"An owl?" Scorpius scoffed. "How's an owl going to fly out of here? We don't have any—"

Meanwhile, Brynne stepped away from the conversation (much to Scorpius's chagrin as he realized mid-sentence that she was no longer paying him any attention) and toward the hearth, fingers around her chin in contemplation.

"Can you mail a letter through a Floo Network?" she asked no one in particular.

"I wouldn't bet any Galleons on it," Murphy answered nonetheless. "I've never seen it done before."

… _And then a hundred of these envelopes came flying out of the fireplace. I even managed to get my hands on one before Vernon took it away from me. In the end, though, I'm glad it happened the way it did. I might have never become friends with Hagrid otherwise._

It had been on the fifteenth of March, the better part of four years ago now, when James, as was the case for most wizard boys and girls turning eleven, received his official acceptance letter to Hogwarts. The owl was quite ugly and looked old, and nearly dropped the envelope right into James's cereal in the middle of breakfast. James's mum said the owl had reminded her of Errol, her own family owl growing up.

Of course, James had known since he could remember knowing much of anything that he was a wizard. The same had not been the case for his father. So, naturally, he had asked his father all about the day he received his own Hogwarts letter. Predictably, his being raised not only by Muggles, but by Muggles that knew of and feared the world of magic, made the process much more complicated.

"Yes, you can," James blurted out. "I think." Everyone turned to look at him – even Brynne.

"Really?" queried Murphy.

"Do you know how?" Brynne asked briskly.

James shook his head. "I don't know _how._ I just figure there might be a way."

"Through the fireplace?" Matthias questioned to his older brother. "Wouldn't that burn up the letter?"

"You've used a Floo Network before, Matty," Mark responded, a tinge of impatience in his voice. " _We_ don't burn up in the Floo Network. 'Least not if you use regulation powder and don't jump in too early."

"But a letter's made out of _parchment,_ not… well…" Matthias grimaced, apparently uncomfortable with the thought he was about to vocalize. "…wizard."

"Ah, but _our_ letters are made of wizard parchment." Mark pointed out. Serra, oddly, put a hand to her mouth.

Scorpius looked around himself incredulously. "So – that's your grand strategy. Shoot a letter through the fireplace, hope it makes it, and then hope the person receiving the letter cares enough to read."

"You got any better ideas, Malfoy? If so, speak up."

Two people had remained separated from the discussion, but they were now approaching – rather slowly. Rowan Lester's arm was draped across the hunched shoulders of Kadric Howell. As Kadric walked slowly, Rowan hopped on his right foot very uncertainly. At one point, Kadric Howell stumbled. Then Rowan stumbled. He came down on the left foot and let out an inhuman snarl and an oath.

"Sorry, sorry," Kadric muttered.

"It's fine," Rowan gasped – but clearly he was lying. Something had happened with his left foot or ankle, and it was causing him tremendous pain. Nevertheless, he made to continue toward the others along with Kadric. "I tried the letter thing earlier this year – with the Headmaster."

"I remember that, come to think of it," remarked Scorpius. "How'd that go for you?"

"Well, that was back in September. It's November now. How do _you_ think it went?" Rowan asked. At that point, out of nowhere, Brynne ran past James and to Rowan, holding two long metal objects that James only vaguely recognized.

"Where'd you find crutches?" Rowan questioned. James was wondering the same thing. Brynne didn't answer. Rowan nonetheless turned his head to Kadric and said, "I'm alright." Kadric Howell helped Rowan onto the crutches, then got out of the way. When Rowan spoke again, it was to everyone: "Headmaster Flitwick was very polite, as always. 'I appreciate your concern, but my decision was made with much thought and counsel and I believe that it is the best thing for Hogwarts at this time.' He hasn't got the spine to set things right."

"Or he really believes in what he's doing," speculated Brynne. "Which might be even more dangerous."

"He didn't ask for Gryffindor and Slytherin to go after each other in the halls," Mark Albertine pointed out. "That's exactly what he was trying to avoid."

"The Headmaster's not a bad person," Brynne opined. "I think he meant well. The truth never came out about what happened to Professor Longbottom. He never gave it a chance."

"We _know_ what happened to Professor Longbottom," Mark answered. "Garrick Claudius tried to kill him. Still, that's no excuse for anybody to—"

"That's not what happened," Brynne interrupted vehemently.

"And you're sure about that, how?" asked Mark.

"Because she was there," James finally spoke up. "Along with Murphy and I. We were all in the room when it happened. A student _did_ attack Professor Longbottom, sure – but it wasn't Claudius. Somebody disguised as him…"

"Morris Beal was his name," Brynne answered. "Everyone else saw just another Hufflepuff student – a talented wizard, sure, but nothing too out of the ordinary. But what he really was… what he really _is_ … well, to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure what he is. I know he's twisted. I know he's power-hungry. I know he takes pleasure in breaking other people because someone once tried to break him."

James heard her voice flag. She paused for a moment.

"People like him, like my parents – what we saw outside – all that…" Brynne trailed off. "It's just the cycle of revenge. People feel slighted or hurt and they can't find justice. So they make other people hurt because it's the next best thing they can do. That's how they get their 'justice.' But it isn't. Not really. One wrong doesn't make up for another. You're just left with… two wrongs. And then three, then four, then however many it takes until somebody wakes up, and speaks up, and says, 'This isn't right.'"

Utter quiet. No one opened their mouth to argue, or even to agree.

"Hogwarts is more than just a school," Brynne went on. "Almost any wizard or witch you could name in Britain got their start here. Minister Shacklebolt studied here. Headmaster Flitwick studied here. Harry Potter studied here. Even the legendary Albus Dumbledore was once a student, like we are now. You could say that there's no single place in Britain that's more important to our society than Hogwarts. But more than that… more than that, this is where we are. For the better part of seven years, this is our _home_ – your home and mine. We eat, drink, sleep, learn and grow on these grounds. And many of us go back to wizard families that love us and care for us – but not everyone's that lucky."

Kadric Howell's hands closed into fists.

"That's why," he finally said. Brynne and Lena both glanced at him. "My parents were both Muggles, but not me. I'm a wizard. Hogwarts _is_ home for me. If I can't be safe and free in my own home, then where the hell can I—"

There was a _whoosh_ sound. The lighting in the room changed subtly. Rowan was facing the source of the anomaly and was first to notice it.

"What the—?"

The crackling fireplace that had been at one side of the hall had seen its flames swell and change color from their normal golden-orange to a light emerald green. It was a color James recognized.

"That's Floo Powder!" he shouted, running to stand between the flame and the others with his wand drawn.

"What?" Brynne uttered, taken aback in a way James almost never heard. "How?"

"I don't know," James admitted. "But I've seen those flames before."

Several tense seconds passed as James waited for someone to emerge from the sparking greenish flames. But when something happened at last, it was not someone who emerged from the hearth – rather, it was some _thing_. A paper something, floating unscathed by fire through the air, where it landed roughly in front of James.

"What the hell was that?" queried Scorpius.

"Good question," James muttered. He knelt to pick it up—

" _Accio parchment!"_ an incantation interrupted James's action. The paper shot from underneath James's grasping hand and zoomed through the air behind James, who whirled around to see it land in the grip of—

"Brynne?" James uttered. "What are you doing?"

"It might be cursed," Brynne said, fumbling with it.

"Then why are _you_ holding it?" James asked, hearing more than a bit of panic creep into his voice.

Brynne _ignored_ him and continued unfurling the scroll, an affectedly stony expression on her face, but a tinge of red visible on her cheeks.

" _James Potter,"_ she read aloud. " _Your charade has ended. Surrender now and we will offer you and your band of miscreants fair Panel hearings."_

"I'm almost a hundred percent sure they're stretching the definition of 'fair' to its limit," Murphy commented offhandedly. Then, noticing everyone's eyes trained on him, he added, "For what that's worth."

" _Refuse to give yourself up and you risk much worse than your own expulsion."_ Brynne read haltingly.

As if Brynne's last words had been a cue, the parchment leapt from her hands, startling her. It hovered in the air, where it folded in on itself strangely, crumpling into a rough ball. The ball of paper glowed for a moment, and landed again in Brynne's hands. When its light faded after a few moments, what remained was not a scroll of parchment or even a crumpled ball of parchment – but something else entirely.

Serra approached closely to Brynne to look at the new object in her hands.

"Impressive bit of Transfiguration," Serra commented.

"It's a flower," confirmed Brynne.

"White petals…" Serra murmured. Then she gave a gasp. " _Oh, no_."

She exchanged a significant glance with Brynne, who seemed to realize what was happening a moment after she did. Now it was James who was left out of the loop. Most worrisome was the look on Brynne's face. It was an expression of pure fear and panic.

But it was Serra that looked up and in James's direction. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it.

"What?" James asked loudly. " _What's going on?"_

Of all people, it was Scorpius Malfoy who approached to look at the flower in Brynne's hands. His fists immediately clenched when he saw it.

"That's not just any flower," he said, whirling around to look James in the eye. "It's a lily."


	15. Chapter 15: Best Bower

Chapter 15: Best Bower

The revelation hit James Potter like a Bludger to the forehead. There was a moment where the room itself spun and the faces of the people before him melted away and swam around in his field of vision. He thought he was going to black out. He might _have_ blacked out, for a second or two.

But then the world in all of its pieces came back together and took shape. He awoke to silence, to far too many pairs of eyes peering at him as if he was meant to be the one to decide their next move.

It was Serra Paxton, after taking a long, deep breath, that finally spoke.

"Okay," she said haltingly. "The last thing we need to do is panic or do anything rash. First we need to find out—"

"NO! _SCREW_ _THAT_! THEY'VE GOT MY SISTER!" The echo of the sound that came from James's mouth scared even him in the aftermath. It was something inhuman, and he felt the burn of his throat and immediately knew he had fouled up his voice horribly. Meanwhile, Serra had clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. The Albertine brothers had drawn their wands. And, honestly, James couldn't blame them. If he had heard someone else make the sound he had just somehow made, that would have been his first instinct as well. He was feeling cold sweat run down his temples. His hands were trembling. Weakly – because his voice could no longer manage anything else – he repeated, "They've got my sister."

He turned around and walked away from the others to be alone with his rage. Everything he had done up to this point – _everything –_ was, at least in part, so something like this would _never_ happen. His father had told him – _implored_ him – to take care of her. And he had meant to do that by any means necessary.

"We shouldn't have left her," he heard someone comment. Somebody snapped on the other boy.

" _Dammit, Howell, this isn't the time!"_ It was the voice of Rowan Lester.

"No—" Brynne's voice joined in. "He's right. I told her to keep well out of the way, thinking she'd be safe. God, I was such an _idiot_. I never should have let her be seen with us. James…"

He felt a hand on his back.

"This isn't your fault," he answered. "Whoever did this wanted _me,_ not you."

"Besides," Rowan's voice pointed out reasonably, "would she have been better off if she'd come with us? You saw what just happened out there."

"…I think we're missing something fairly obvious," Scorpius Malfoy decided to chime in.

"And what's that?" Rowan asked, with a bit of a distrustful edge in his voice.

"This could be some sort of trap," replied Scorpius.

"You really think I'm going to take that chance?!" James whirled around, and might have been making a beeline straight for Scorpius Malfoy with bad intentions if it hadn't been for Brynne being right in front of him.

"Of _course_ you're not going to take that chance – and they _know_ you wouldn't take that chance. That's why it would work," Scorpius pointed out calmly.

The Albertine brothers exchanged glances.

"To be fair, that's solid logic," Mark, the older of the two, remarked.

"God, I never thought Hawes would stoop this low," Kadric Howell snarled to himself. James grasped the hair nearest his forehead into both fists and pulled it down, nearly _out –_ and turned his back on everybody, trying _not_ to succumb to the very real, very sudden, and very frightening temptation to pull out his wand and start hexing everyone in the room.

"You haven't been paying attention, then," Lena Urquhart contended next. "He and Claudius both beat Steph bloody last year."

"It wasn't Hawes that did this," James heard himself say as something clicked into place in his brain.

"It must have been the Slytherins. They're the only ones that would be able to get to her," he heard Kadric Howell remark.

"He was probably part of it, sure…" James answered. "But I should have known from the off. This has Bletchley written all over it."

He heard Brynne gasp behind him.

"He hates me," James explained simply, admittedly a bit irritated that Brynne couldn't seem to get this through her head after all this time. "He's been jealous of me for years now."

Brynne sighed.

"Is that not true?" James asked, trying to keep his patience with her and keeping his back turned. He couldn't look anyone in the eye just yet.

After a couple of seconds, Brynne nodded. With an incongruous hand of comfort on his back, she said, rather bluntly. "It's true. He hates you."

James turned around at this.

"Did you think I'd say something different?" Brynne asked. "I'm not going to lie to you. He hates you. And he hates himself for not being you. It's… complicated." She averted her eyes for a moment. "But…"

"To go this low over Quidditch, though—" Kadric Howell started.

"Are you daft?" Lena queried. "You think this is just over Quidditch? God, no. I mean, I'm sure that bit doesn't help, but Bletchley can't deal with the fact that James is the one—"

She stopped short and clapped her hands over her mouth while Kadric Howell and several others gave her strange glances. Lena glanced at James and then at Brynne.

Brynne gave a somber smile to Lena and put her hand around one of James's, which had been clenched into a tight fist but slackened a bit at her touch.

"It's alright. He knows," she told her. But then Brynne looked up at James, now taking hold of both of his hands. "You know, right?"

James, of course, didn't think this was quite the time for this – but it wasn't going to change his answer. He nodded wordlessly, not trusting himself to speak at the moment.

"Then you'll trust what I'm telling you," Brynne said, the slightest hint of a plea shining behind her blue eyes. " _Phillip didn't do it_."

James wanted to badly to believe Brynne would not lie to him – even up to this point, she had never done it before.

"How can you be sure of that?" queried Scorpius Malfoy. "That it wasn't Bletchley?"

"Very easily," Brynne said. "First, that was a handwritten letter – and that wasn't his handwriting."

"How are you so sure that wasn't his handwriting?" asked James.

"Simple," Brynne answered. "I've been sitting classes next to him for almost three years. I know Phillip's handwriting, and this isn't it. This was blocky and sloppy. Phillip doesn't even write like that when he's in a hurry. His is neat. Chaser hands – very steady."

No one could argue such a plausible answer. Even Serra murmured, "I guess that _does_ make sense."

"So it must have been Hawes," accused Kadric Howell.

"Might be Amara or Marsha Flint," Lena countermanded.

"No – they know better," Brynne uttered briskly. She always gave this vague answer when referring to her two roommates, who had bullied her in her earlier Hogwarts days until she did… something… to the both of them that had earned their compliance. James had never thought of asking her what this something was. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure he needed or wanted to know.

"So we're assuming it's a Slytherin, then?" Rowan, uncertain on his new crutches, wobbled a bit ungracefully as he tried to reset them to a more comfortable position. "Isn't that what got us into this situation in the first place?"

Most of the room glanced at Rowan. A few even dropped their heads guiltily.

"So… what's the move?" Mark Albertine finally asked.

"What the hell do you think is the move?" Murphy spoke up. "We're going to go get James's sister."

"No," James interjected loudly. " _I'm_ going to get my sister."

"James," Brynne grabbed hold of his wrists. "I'll go with you."

James shook his head. "Brynne—"

"This is my fault," she replied. "I said I'd protect her until things went back to normal and I didn't. Please – let me make this right."

James swallowed hard. "Brynne, I'm not going to go find whoever's got my sister and ask them nicely to give her back. We've gone past that now. Someone's going to get hurt. Maybe them. Maybe me. Probably a bit of both."

"I know," she said. "I'm not afraid."

"I am," James said, and he heard his voice shake. Brynne must have heard it, too, because her expression changed.

"James, please—"

"You're – _too – important_ ," James interrupted, looking her right in the eyes. "Not just to me. To them, too."

Brynne's eyes told the story – she was going to relent, but she wasn't going to like it.

"You'll come back, right?"

Somehow – maybe because of their conversation before (which he wasn't likely to forget any time soon) – James understood that she wasn't asking whether he would return physically unharmed. Although, for what it was worth, if she _had_ been asking that, it would have been perfectly understandable…

"Just don't wander too far," she said.

He tore his eyes away from her. If he lingered too long, he might never leave. He looked down at his shoes as he made his way through the small throng. He felt the heat of their eyes on him, even as he passed them and made his way to the door. His footsteps seemed oddly out of rhythm.

Those weren't his footsteps.

He whirled around to find someone unexpected.

"Mal…" James muttered. Then he changed his mind. "Scorpius?"

Scorpius Malfoy's mouth twitched.

"You're planning on raising hell throughout Hogwarts Castle and showing anyone who stands between you and Lily unimaginable pain," Scorpius said, by way of a question that wasn't really a question.

James's nostrils flared. "That's about the long and short of it. You planning on trying to stop me? Telling me I shouldn't do it?"

"Not exactly," Scorpius replied.

Then his gray eyes assumed a familiar, hard stare.

 **Albus**

"Hostages? Really?"

"I hear they're holed up in the castle somewhere – somewhere not even the professors can reach them."

"Scorpius Malfoy, I could see – but Rowan Lester? That's just hard to believe. He always seemed like such a sweetheart."

"Cute, too."

"Well, sure, I guess… but now with this…"

It was taking everything within Albus Potter not to walk over to his two witch classmates and tell them both to _shut the hell up already_. He knew, though, as most knew, it would do no good. Those two loved their gossip. Besides – gossip typically had the smallest element of truth to it. And if one had the patience to listen, and could find a way to sort through the sensationalism, one could actually find himself learning something.

He stood up from his seat suddenly. Nina Edgerton and Liz O'Connell both stopped their whispering a few feet away to stare at him. He ignored their gazes and made his way over to one of the tables in the common room, where Sylvia was poring over some sort of parchment with what appeared to be a great degree of difficulty. She bit her lip. Albus felt his stomach roil within him oddly, but not altogether unpleasantly. Then her eyes found his a few paces away.

"Why do we have to take History of Magic?" she asked. "I don't think I've learned a damn thing useful in three years."

Albus knew she was trying to make him laugh. And he appreciated the effort. Really. He did. It was just… well, two of his siblings were unaccounted for and at least one was said to be in awful trouble, so he wasn't really in the mood.

If Sylvia didn't read all this on his face, she read something close to it. Her own visage fell.

"I'm sure James is alright," she said, not sounding sure at all. "You know Temple – he's full of—"

"I wish I could believe you," interrupted Albus, hoisting himself up into the other free chair and letting his legs dangle. "It's just… well, it's James. Even if he doesn't find trouble, trouble has a way of finding him. And on top of that…"

He trailed off.

"I'm worried about what might be happening to Lily," he admitted. "I mean… if the Slytherins ran across Godric's Guard and think they were set up, too…"

"Albus," Sylvia called suddenly.

"You don't think that's a problem?" Albus bit back, a touch more loudly than he'd meant to out of frustration.

"No, Albus, _look_ ," Sylvia grabbed his wrist and pointed vaguely toward the staircases that led to the dormitories. When Albus finally looked in that direction, his eyes immediately caught what – or who – had Sylvia's attention. Somewhat unkempt hair of auburn bounced against Rose's shoulders as she walked down the stairs, her arms clutched tightly around her chest, holding (as per usual) a book of some sort.

Seeing Rose outside of class nowadays was like catching sight of a unicorn, or a glimpse of the giant squid. And even when she emerged, she seldom, if ever, interacted. She always looked like she was regretting her decision to venture into the outside world, and would rather be holed up in her room with her books.

Needless to say, she and Albus didn't talk anymore. He didn't know if it had to do with Scorpius or not. He was scared to ask.

 _No, that's not right_ , the brutally honest part of him that he seldom ever allowed to be his spokesman, chimed in. _You just don't want to deal with her right now. She annoys you._

Albus watched her sadly, knowing that nasty little honest voice at the back of his head was at least partially correct, and wondering when such a thing had started happening. Rose had been as close to him as either of his siblings, once. Perhaps closer. As small children, they did nearly everything together. Then again, outside of their own family, neither had any other friends. Maybe it was just a consequence of growing up, of having other people around…

"She doesn't really sleep," Sylvia commented out of nowhere; and, indeed, as she approached closer, Albus got a good look at her face. To be very blunt, she looked like hell. She was paler than usual – almost ghostly. Even her hair seemed to have lost a bit of color.

She stopped and turned toward Albus. Recognition crossed her face, but alarmingly slowly.

"Where's Hugo?" she asked, in a drained-sounding voice.

Albus was stuck. A brief pang of panic struck him as he realized he actually had no idea. Albus thought for a second it might have been fortunate when a commotion toward the portrait hole caught his and Rose's attention. That is, until he saw who it was.

"You're unbelievable!" a boy that Albus vaguely recognized as one of the Gryffindor Quidditch players (the name, however, escaped him) shouted, storming into the common room from the portrait hole.

"I'm not making a decision until this plays out and we hear everyone's side of the story," Freddy followed him. It was immediately obvious that he and this other lad had been at this discussion for a while, and Freddy was just barely holding his patience. "In fact, I'm not even in the mood to talk about this. My cousin has gone missing."

"Yeah, well, Malfoy's not your cousin," the boy retorted. "What are you gonna do about him? You _told_ him before not to get involved and he ignored your warning. Not to mention that stunt he pulled yesterday—"

"Let's not forget – you're the one who got yourself eject—"

"We still would've lost – because Malfoy didn't do his job," Rodney interrupted Freddy.

"If you can do so much better, why haven't _you_ played Seeker in three years on this team?" Freddy asked. "No, it's easier to criticize everybody else, isn't it? We _all_ could've done things better – and that includes _you_ staying on the pitch."

"I made things easier on you lot and you know it," Rodney answered. "Craig's their most dangerous player – you're just as likely as not to wind up in the hospital wing with him on the pitch."

"You know as well as I do that wasn't what it was about," Freddy said. "You lost your cool."

"I'd like to see you get Cobbed over the head for twenty minutes and no one's bloody calling it," snapped Rodney. "See if you can keep your cool. We've got eleven people on the roster and you're all acting like _I_ cost us the match."

"I never _said_ that," Freddy countered, frustrated.

Rodney folded his arms. "You should've just let me put one across Craig's skull and be done with it."

And he separated from Freddy, past Albus and the others, bizarrely muttering something about "snogging the Head Girl." Meanwhile, Freddy stood in place, kneading his forehead with his knuckles as if trying to massage away a massive headache.

Meanwhile, a Prefect was walking over to where Freddy was standing.

"Weasley—"

"What?" Freddy snapped on him. "What do you want?"

" _Hey – easy,_ " the Prefect replied. "I'm just trying to find out if you know anything about what happened with Potter and Malfoy."

Freddy rolled his eyes. Clearly he'd been asked this question before and was tired of having to answer it. "Dammit, Bourne, I'm a Quidditch captain, not a bloody babysitter. I don't keep track of where my whole club is when we're not playing or practicing. I thought that was _your_ job."

Bourne frowned. "Come on. Don't be difficult. I'm asking you because you were one of the last people to know where either of them went."

"Yeah – _yesterday_ ," Freddy retorted. "I don't know if I've _seen_ either of them since yesterday."

"And that's what I told Temple," Bourne explained reluctantly. "He doesn't like to listen."

"And where is _he_?" Freddy asked.

"Going to find Professor Wenster, I'd imagine," answered Bourne.

Freddy sighed through his nostrils. "You and Tommy should try actually standing up to Temple every now and again—"

"You honestly think Temple scares me?" Bourne asked. "If Longbottom was here Temple would've been stripped weeks ago. But he's Wenster's favorite and Wenster's friends with the Headmaster. Which, long story short, means Temple's got every other Gryffindor Prefect by the…" He stopped himself, noticing Dominique approaching the conversation. "…Well, Temple's Wenster's errand boy. We've got to do what he says – or, bye-bye, badges. And _you'd_ better toe the line, too, or Wenster'll have that Captaincy from you faster than blinking."

"Are you threatening me?" Freddy asked, a warning tone in his voice.

"No – I'm just being honest," Bourne replied, sounding uncomfortable. "We're all in the same boat. And I hate to say it, but… the club's going to be in trouble if the rumors are true."

"Can we _slow down_ for a damn second?" asked Freddy. "I've been out with—" He stopped, with the tense air of someone who had come close to revealing too much. "I've been… out. Not in the castle. I don't even know what the rumors _are_."

"Well…" Bourne sighed.

Finally, Dominique chimed into the conversation. "The way Bourne puts it… he and… _that_ lot – they ran across some Slytherins on the seventh floor and a duel started… a couple of Gryffindors got hurt pretty badly."

"So what's that got to do with James or Malfoy?" Freddy queried.

"Well, apparently, Malfoy… turned on them or something and he and James were helping Slytherin?" Bourne recounted as if unsure of the story himself. "That's what it sounds like."

"You mean, that's what Temple made it sound like," Freddy corrected Bourne, who reluctantly nodded. "So now – long story short – nobody can find James _or_ Malfoy."

Dominique shook her head.

"Disappeared," Bourne added, shrugging his shoulders. "But Wenster's got people searching the grounds. I'm hearing he's going to ask for the worst when he finds them."

Freddy's jaw unhinged and a bit of color left his face. "Wh… you mean he's gonna call the Panel? He's gonna try to have them both expelled from Hogwarts?"

"I don't know if he can bring that off," Bourne said in what he probably thought was a reassuring tone. "We haven't actually expelled anybody in seventy-five years – so there's _that_. But on the other hand… Potter's been kind of on Wenster's bad side for a while. Wenster _really_ wanted him for the Guard and he turned them down flat. And then Malfoy… well, you probably know about that better than I do."

Freddy tilted his head. "No… not really."

Bourne sighed patiently. "C'mon. Be serious. You know what the story is there. And, for what it's worth, Flitwick could get back in the good graces of the Board and a lot of parents if…"

"If he offered Malfoy up as a sacrificial lamb?" Freddy cut Bourne off. Then, shaking his head, he said, "Flitwick wouldn't do that."

"I wouldn't have thought Flitwick would do a lot of things he's done lately," Bourne remarked, a bit of sadness in his voice.

At that moment, the common door swung open, somehow rather more forcefully than what was normal. This got the attention of a lot of students, and the few that didn't look up immediately started to when the room began buzzing with chatter. Albus, though, saw the whole thing. Through the door stepped Professor Lucan Wenster, garbed in robes of blood red trimmed with black, his bald head covered by a matching hat of a square-ish shape. A couple of Gryffindors that Albus recognized as being part of Godric's Guard followed very closely.

"Gryffindors," Wenster said. His voice was so sonorous in the silence that Albus thought for a moment he might have used some sort of spell. "I am here with an announcement that demands each and every single one of your attention."

This request for attention was thoroughly unnecessary – unlike Neville, who was prone to popping in occasionally to check up on things and interact with his students, Wenster didn't simply visit Gryffindor Tower for anything less than something very important.

"When each of you was Sorted," Wenster went on. "I'm sure you were told, among other things, that Hogwarts was your home, and that your House was your family. I won't presume to know what your home lives are like when you are not within these walls, so I can't assume everyone understands the gravity of those words. Any friends or associates can collaborate, or cooperate. But that doesn't make them a family. What that means… what family means… is that you protect your own at all costs. What family means, is that the interest of the whole becomes as important, if not more important, than the interest of the one. What family means… is that if someone from without threatens the family, they are an enemy that must be dealt with. And if… if the threat to the family comes from somewhere within… they are a traitor that also must be dealt with. And it is to that end, in the interest of defending the Gryffindor family as the Head of this House…"

" _Acting Head_ ," Albus muttered very quietly to himself, feeling a pang of annoyance. _And a rubbish one at that_ , he added mentally, not daring to say that part aloud.

"…That I had the unfortunate duty of dealing with a threat from within. A young man Sorted into this House made the decision to threaten the safety and, one could easily argue, the very lives, of some of our brightest members. He met in secret with known enemies to our family and it was likely there that he began to imagine ways to betray us. Well… I am pleased to tell you that this person has been caught. He is being taken to the Headmaster along with his Slytherin accomplice, and if justice still counts for anything here, he will be dealt with as he deserves. His name will not save him from being punished appropriately for his transgression. What I mean to say is… he will no longer be a member of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Albus's heart jumped into his throat. He heard Sylvia swear somewhere behind him. _It's James_ , he thought, feeling his stomach lurch sickeningly. _It's got to be James._

"Remember this name as the first of several examples, should any of you have the thought of doing something similarly dishonorable," Wenster announced. "This young man's name….. is Hugo Weasley."

The next instant stretched out over what felt like several minutes. An inhuman scream came from somewhere near him, and it was only instinct that allowed Albus to locate the source of the scream and react before something truly awful happened.

And something truly awful _would_ have happened, because Rose had thrown her book to the ground, pulled her wand, and started to make a beeline straight for Wenster and the two Godric's Guard members flanking him, both of whom looked to be on the older side.

Thankfully, before any of that happened, Albus had managed to grab hold of her, and pried her wand from her grip in the struggle. She resisted – elbowed him in the ribs, even – but he refused to let go.

"Come on, Rose, calm down," Sylvia said, having stepped in front of her. "You're not seriously going to attack a professor."

"They've got Hugo!" Rose cried, understandably beyond reason at this point. "They've – got – _geroff—"_

Albus felt the wind driven from his body again. But Wenster, who Albus wasn't sure had even known or acknowledged that one of his own students may have tried to come after him, was already turning back and headed through the portrait hole. Eventually, Rose's snarling and shouting lost its coherence, and she collapsed into a heap, crying uncontrollably. Albus only then noticed how many eyes were turning in their direction now that Wenster was gone. He met none of them, trying not to concentrate on what felt like a bright, hot spotlight being shone upon him.

 _But that's life as a Potter_ , the nasty voice in his head said. _You should be used to it by now._

 _I'm not. I'll never be._

Sylvia knelt to comfort Rose, but seemed to realize a few seconds in that there was nothing she could do for her at the moment.

Something in the words Wenster had left behind stood out to Albus – a small detail he hadn't quite focused on enough the first time. But now that it was replaying in his head…

He vaguely saw Sylvia reach for him, but then hesitate, as if she somehow knew it wasn't a good idea at the time.

"There's only one person from Slytherin that Hugo would've been visiting," Albus said blankly. At least, he _thought_ he said. He felt his mouth forming the words, heard them being spoken, but they didn't sound like they were issuing forth from his own throat. It was as if he was moving his mouth in sync with someone else speaking the words very far away.

"I don't understand," Rose finally sobbed in a small voice. "Why are they blaming this all on Hugo?"

"Why? Because Wenster's a power-hungry old codger – that's why," Sylvia answered. She glimpsed Albus before saying, "Don't look at me like that. You know it's true."

Albus wasn't giving Sylvia any sort of look – at least, not that he knew of. Maybe, he thought, that was just his face now.

"Sylvia," he heard himself call. It sounded eerily like a command, and judging by Sylvia's expression, she must have thought the same thing. He tore his eyes away from her. He couldn't afford to lose his nerve. "Take Rose back up to your room and make sure she stays."

"Don't touch me," Rose warned forebodingly, before Sylvia could even get close to her. Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet. Without so much as a look at Albus, she started toward the exit of the common room.

"Hey!" a shout went up from somewhere near the portrait hole. "We can't let anyone outside the tower! Wenster's orders!"

Rose was not listening, still walking toward the door. Albus started to follow. "Move," Rose said, an alarming lack of inflection in her voice.

"Bourne—" another boy's voice warned.

"Stand down, Weasley," Bourne ordered again, raising his voice this time.

"Bourne—"

"Move," Rose repeated.

"Rose—" Albus called, breaking into a run.

"Stand – _down_ ," Bourne said a third time, now snapping each word and trying to sound intimidating.

"Move," Rose also said a third time. By now, she was five paces away from Bourne, who was just now leveling his wand.

"I'll use force if I have to!" warned Bourne. Rose, to Albus's great panic, kept walking, until Bourne's leveled wand was practically poking her between the eyes.

Things went eerily quiet, and Rose stood there, not moving her head from in front of Bourne's wand, which was prodding the bridge of her nose. Bourne likewise stood there, not moving the wand from the bridge of her nose.

Once again, Rose said one word: "Move."

Bourne cringed.

"C'mon, mate. She's fourteen. Don't do anything mad," Freddy's voice said.

Rose's eyes darted toward Freddy, as if somewhat insulted that he would have brought up her age. Albus was just within reach of her, but then someone cut in front of him.

"Come on, Rosie. Calm down. Come on. You can't… come on, stop it…"

Albus's early memories of Roxanne were rather fragmented, he mused as he watched his older cousin slowly pull the wand from Rose's pocket. The two weren't quite as close as he was to Rose and Hugo. But Rose and Hugo were perhaps nearly as close to Roxanne as they were to him. They grew up in and around the shop, and saw each other often. But just like with everyone else, it seemed, Rose had distanced herself somewhat from Roxanne as the two grew older.

"Thanks," Bourne sounded extremely relieved, watching Roxanne pull Rose back from him.

"You understand why she's upset, right?" Roxanne asked calmly. "They've got her brother."

Bourne sighed. "I know. But I can't let anyone leave."

"Trust me, I get it. You've got responsibilities," Roxanne replied. "Same here."

Bourne nodded. "Sorry."

"Me, too," Roxanne agreed. Then her grip on Rose's wand stiffened suddenly. " _Stupefy!"_

There was a red flash of light, and Kenneth Bourne crumpled in a heap against the Common Room's exit. Several people jumped – including Freddy.

Freddy said a word Albus had once seen James smacked over the head for letting slip in front of their mother, his hands firmly gripping his hair in panic. "What did you do?!" 

"I Stunned him. Obviously," deadpanned Roxanne. Then she glanced at Dominique. Albus did too, and Dominique might as well have _turned_ into a ghost with how pale she now was. " _I_ Stunned him. Not Rosie, not Freddy. _Me_. I did it. That's the story you'll tell whoever because _it's the truth_."

Dominique was completely stuck for a moment. "God… Roxanne, you… you just hexed a Prefect."

"You'll have to report it to the Head of House, right?" asked Roxanne, as if thoroughly unbothered by this fact. "Don't waste your energy. I'm about to go find the bastard myself." Then she raised her voice. "And if _any of you_ are stupid to try to follow me, Pomfrey'll have to put you back together like a bloody jigsaw. Got it?"

She let go of Rose, almost shoving her through the portrait hole (not that Rose needed the push) before exiting herself. Albus waited for a second and then, only about ninety-five percent sure his arse was _not_ going to get kicked, followed.

 **James**

James peered around the corner of a hallway, wishing he could make use of what was in his pocket. Not for the first time, thinking about the Map started a mental argument with himself.

 _It'll probably tell you where Lily is._

 _Probably, but I can't use it in front of him._

 _Why's that – because he's a Malfoy?_

 _He's unpredictable. I don't really know him that well. Hell, I don't even know why he's here._

 _Why don't you ask him?_

 _Because he's not bloody likely to give me a straight answer – that's why._

 _Why not – because he's a Malfoy?_

 _Sod off. It's his personality. He doesn't let anyone into what he's thinking half the time. You know that. I mean – I know that._

 _Lead with another question, then. Maybe he'll give you a straight answer to that one._

"Did you recognize the handwriting on that letter?" James asked.

"No idea," replied Scorpius. James paused for a moment – then jumped out from behind his corner.

" _Lumos Duo,"_ he incanted, holding his wand aloft. Brilliant light shone from the tip of his wand for a moment before zooming off into the distance in the form of a tiny ball. The flames on the wall lit two by two, obviously mistaking the light's warmth and motion for some sort of human presence. But the light also revealed that James and Scorpius were the only two in the area. "All clear," he said, and Scorpius emerged from behind the wall to follow him.

"That's odd… I mean, how empty it is," Scorpius explained quickly. "Not even any portraits or anything. Does nobody use this hallway at all?"

James peered around himself and noticed that the hallway was indeed all but deserted. It _was_ eerie.

"Hope a ghost doesn't pop out at us," Scorpius muttered.

"You scared of ghosts?" James asked.

"Of course not," Scorpius answered. "There's just no good way to prepare for one coming straight through a wall."

They slowed their pace, although inwardly James thought they should have been traversing this stretch of abandoned hallway a bit faster.

"Why did you join Godric's Guard, anyway?" asked James. "You never explained."

James was almost completely convinced Scorpius would tell him to mind his business or, if he was feeling particularly diplomatic, pretend not to have heard the question. So it was surprising indeed when Scorpius answered. "Lena. I thought I could keep Temple and the others away from her."

"But it didn't work," James remarked for some reason.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," Scorpius answered bitterly. "I failed."

"Not really," James answered. "It's just… people do their own thing. It's hard to protect people if you can't control them… tell them where not to go, who to stay away from... if you can't predict what they're going to do, then—"

"Then nobody can protect anybody," Scorpius finished.

James stopped walking. "…We just do the best we can."

"…Right," Scorpius murmured. "…Where do you think they…"

"I couldn't even begin to tell you," James answered. "First off, I don't even know who 'they' are. It could be either side, somebody else."

"Somebody else?" Scorpius repeated, now sounding a bit alarmed. "Well… who 'else' is there?"

"Malfoy!"

James heard a voice behind him and whipped around to see a flash of robes, diving sideways, parallel to the ground. A red jet of light was coming toward him.

" _Verdi—"_

James didn't get to finish the incantation. A sudden impact lifted him off his feet and knocked him to the ground. No sooner than he had hit his back than he heard Scorpius's voice:

" _Serpensortia!"_

The din of violence went quiet for a moment, replaced by an ominous hissing noise. In the blurry, dimly lit hallway, James could just make out something long and wiry, undulating back and forth on the ground.

"Oh, god! What the hell—" somebody shouted out. The voice sounded feminine.

"Ugh. Move," a more familiar voice groaned, sounding annoyed. " _Vipera Evanesca!"_

There was a flash of light and another hiss. James scrambled back to his feet.

" _Immobulus!"_

James felt a strange sensation, like the very air around him had tightened like a vice around his skin and robes. He tried to take a step and found he could not.

"Where'd you and your people take Lily Potter?!" the familiar voice snarled. James recognized it this second time, and a hot anger boiled inside of him. Unfortunately, the very air seemed to be fighting him. He couldn't even blink. His eyes felt like cracked earth, then like fire and water, the cold, dry castle air and the dust therein assaulting them without respite.

"Bletchley, you _idiot_ ," snapped Scorpius. "We don't have time for—"

"Shut up!" Bletchley barked, positively spitting. "Don't play stupid with me, Malfoy, I know you've got her!"

"What the hell do you care, anyway?" Scorpius asked. "She's not your concern."

"She's a Slytherin," the female voice said. "All Slytherins are our concern. Even the ones that like to wander off on occasion."

"Don't you see who this is behind me? You think I'd be standing here if I'd dragged off his sister?" Scorpius replied.

The girl gasped. "Sod!" she swore. "That's James Potter! Bletchley, why didn't you tell me that was James Potter _before_ I hexed him?"

"What?" uttered Bletchley rather artificially. " _Lumos!_ ….Ah. Damn. That _is_ James Potter. How about that? Kinda dark in here."

If James had been able to move his mouth, it would have been forming words best left unquoted.

"So, then – Malfoy – where's the rest of your goons? I know that little berk Vaisey's hiding around here somewhere…"

"There's no goons – no Guard," Scorpius replied icily. "Just us – and we're trying to find Lily, same as you are."

"She's in _our_ house," Bletchley answered. "So that's _our_ job, thanks."

"And here you are, on the arse end of the castle, pointing your wands at two blokes that _could_ be helping you out," Scorpius answered. "…Nice job you're doing."

"Oh, piss off," Bletchley scoffed in annoyance. Then he leveled his wand. James felt the invisible clutches loosening their hold on him. "You know what? This never would've happened if Temple and you idiots hadn't come up to the seventh floor, trying to ambush us. I'm done trying to negotiate with you."

On that last part, James thought, they finally agreed about something. He jumped to the left, trying to get a clearer shot around Scorpius's head—

He started an incantation, praying that it would work as intended – or that, if it didn't, whatever effect it had would be equally uncomfortable for its target. " _Brachium—"_

There was a brief flash of light behind the young lady that Phillip Bletchley had brought with him. In the next instant, that young lady had crumpled to the floor, face-first, her body stiff as a board.

"Pucey!" Bletchley shouted, startled, as his eyes found his fallen companion. "What the f—"

A lit wand forced itself up underneath Bletchley's chin, backed him to the wall, and brought him to silence.

"It's not your lucky day, mate." The voice was feminine, but not girlish. James thought he might have recognized it, but he didn't know where from—

At least, not until she stepped from the shadows.


	16. Chapter 16: The Fury

**Chapter 16: The Fury**

She had never been to the Headmaster's office before – not that such a thing was a major accomplishment. She counted backwards in her head. The first of September had fallen on a Sunday that year. Today was Sunday as well. So, exactly… ten weeks? No, eleven. There had been five Sundays in September so… eleven.

Eleven weeks. And, in all likelihood, she was going home.

She had looked forward to this for the better part of eleven years, and now, in eleven weeks, it was all over.

 _How does it work, exactly?_ She began asking herself, the pit in her stomach growing deeper by the moment. Goosebumps were erupting on her flesh. (Then again, that may have had nothing to do with her fear. It was freezing in here.) _Will Mum or Dad have to come to Hogwarts to get me? Are they going to send the train back to London with just me? Do I get to keep my wand?_

Her throat tightened. _No_ , she thought desperately. _I can't let anybody see me cry. Besides, this is all rubbish. They don't even want me. Not really._

She tried to calm herself. But then an image flashed across her mind's eye.

 _That boy…_

She felt her lip quiver. A scrawny, bespectacled lad with dark hair had tried to come to her aid. But it was three on one. He took a curse to the face and the last she had seen of him, he was lying down on the ground, unconscious, bleeding from the nose and mouth, the frames of his glasses snapped in half. He was a Slytherin, she knew that much. Who had told him to try to protect her? The ones that came for her were older and bigger than he was. He had to have known he couldn't win, but he did it anyway…

She blinked back the wetness encroaching on her eyelids, almost defiantly, and tried to focus on something – anything – else.

Her eyes settled on an old, golden-framed portrait of a very old man reclining in an ornate chair. His hair, situated underneath a hat that lay jauntily atop his head, was silvery and long. His beard, on the other hand, seemed almost impossibly long; it was at least down to his waist, which was saying quite a bit because the man – as far as Lily could tell – was quite tall.

Then, as she studied his sleeping face, two very particular and telltale details stood out. He had a long nose that appeared to change direction on his face more times than should have been allowable. Above this nose, slightly askew because of their position, sat a pair of half-moon spectacles.

Lily had never been in one of the headteachers' offices before, so she'd never seen a proper portrait this close. Still, though, she knew by appearance who this man was.

"…Professor Dumbledore?" she uttered, almost at a whisper.

She, of course, had grown up in wizard society all of her life. Still, when a picture actually moved it always started her just a bit. Especially with this one – Dumbledore's eyes had opened, twinkling, iridescent blue, and with a strange, unsettling quality that made Lily uncomfortable. It felt like Dumbledore was seeing through everything; not perversely, in a way that made her feel uncovered. No, it didn't feel like he was staring through her robes to the skin. It felt like he was staring through the skin, too; and through the bones and the innards and the heart, to something immaterial. It felt like her very thoughts, her deepest, darkest secrets were laid bare.

Like the fact that, as much as she loved her pet cat, Fiamma… now that she was at school and quite busy, she would've preferred an owl now. And, of course, she could never tell her parents that, because then they would be disappointed or angry.

Or the fact that she had sort of wanted to try her hand at Quidditch, but hadn't worked up the nerve to ask for a broom that year.

Or the fact that she was secretly a little bit jealous of her friend, Parveen Rama. Parveen was taller than her, and prettier. Of course, Mum was beautiful, and _everyone_ told Lily she looked just like Mum had as a young girl. So maybe she'd grow up to be strong and beautiful, too. But what if she didn't…?

"You look oddly familiar," Dumbledore said, his tone soft and reassuring. Somehow, this didn't make Lily more comfortable, because she was now wondering if _he_ knew how uncomfortable he was making her. "Have we met before?"

"I don't think so," Lily answered, trying consciously to steady her voice when she realized that it was trembling a bit. "You know my father, though. My name's Lily Potter."

Dumbledore paused. "He named you after her. I can't say I'm surprised. I remember your grandmother. You _do_ look a bit like her. But not exactly. Remind me again who your mother is?"

"Ginny," Lily said. Then, realizing that a man Dumbledore's age might have been acquainted with and taught half a dozen girls named Ginny, she decided to specify, "Ginny Weasley."

After a half-second, Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Ah. That's it. Yes, Ginny Weasley. You favor your mother very, _very_ much."

"I've been told," Lily answered.

"I've seen your older brother once or twice," Dumbledore commented.

"Which one?" Lily asked. "I have two. Was it James? Or Albus?"

"James, I believe—" Dumbledore started; then it appeared to hit him and he paused. "Wait… did you say 'Albus'?"

"Yes. He's the middle brother," Lily asked. "Dad named him after you."

Dumbledore blinked. "Now," he said, now very obviously emotional. "Why would he go and do something like that?"

"He respected you a lot, I guess," Lily said.

"Albus Potter…" Dumbledore murmured.

"Albus Severus Potter," Lily replied. "His middle name's after Professor Snape. He was a hero for my house."

" _Your_ house?" asked Dumbledore. "So… you're a Slytherin. Interesting." He stroked his beard.

"Interesting?" queried Lily. "What does that mean?"

"I remember, once upon a time, that the Sorting Hat thought very hard about putting your father in Slytherin," Dumbledore said. "So, you went willingly?"

"Not really," Lily admitted, figuring Dumbledore knew already. "But I've learned to be alright with it. I just wish I could see my brothers more. They're both in Gryffindor."

"Can you not?" asked Dumbledore.

"No," Lily answered.

"Professor Wenster's doing, I assume?" Dumbledore remarked, frowning. "I always…"

He never got to finish his sentence. His image in the frame faded quickly, and was replaced by a void of such a deep, dark black that its presence seemed to suck the light out of half the room.

Lily heard a footfall, whirled around, and there stood Lucan Wenster, hat sat above his bald head, wearing his robes of blood.

"Professor Dumbledore and I had… a complicated relationship," Wenster said, approaching. "He was _my_ Transfiguration professor, years upon years back. As Head of Gryffindor House, he elevated me to Prefect. And if there was one thing we agreed on, it was that Tom Riddle and the gang of young men that counted themselves as his friends were not to be trusted completely. But that was where our paths diverged. I recommended an investigation into Tom Riddle after a certain incident happened here. But by that time, I'd been calling for an investigation into Riddle and his cohorts for over a year. Not only did no one listen to me, but my ambition to be Head Boy suddenly hit a brick wall. They gave some contrived excuse about having the wrong temperament – but I know better. I spoke out against their 'golden boy'… they couldn't have that."

Lily listened, too afraid to respond.

"Over time, I got used to not being anyone's favorite," Wenster went on coldly. Just then, Lily caught sight of a portrait she hadn't noticed, at the other side of the room. This one, unlike Dumbledore's, which had been slightly dusty, appeared to have been cared for well – almost meticulously. Inside it was, seated in a chair, a stunningly beautiful woman. She had golden hair – not simply blonde, but a shimmering shade of blonde that looked like the tresses had been spun from gold itself. They fell in loose curls and ringlets, covering her shoulders where her strapless gown did not. " _Girl_ ," Wenster called, his voice suddenly harsh. Lily jumped. "Look at _me._ "

It was an unusually visceral reaction from a man that, from what Lily had seen, was typically icy and stoic.

"That's what's gotten your brother in such trouble – he's always poking into places where he shouldn't. I can only fault him so much, I suppose," Wenster said. "I never got to teach your father, but word was he was exactly the same way…"

A whirring sound distracted Wenster from his train of thought. He turned and gazed toward what Lily knew was the lift that led up to this room.

Looking like someone that had just run quite a distance, an older boy emerged into the office, talking as he came. "Professor, we've got a major—"

The lad saw Lily, and pulled up short.

"What?!" he exclaimed.

" _Calm_ yourself, Pike. You see? They didn't hurt her," the older man explained. Lily glared at the man, thinking of Karyn and of the older Slytherin boy whose name escaped her at the moment – but she was much too afraid to speak.

Pike's face twitched. "With all due respect, Professor Wenster, that's not the point. This feels…"

"The very safety of our House – our entire school – is at stake," Wenster hissed, leaving Lily's side (much to her relief) to stride toward Pike. "If you don't feel like that's worth making one or two students out of several hundred a bit uncomfortable, then perhaps you haven't got the stomach for this."

Pike sighed. "She's a little girl, Professor. Not even the same age as my sister."

Lily didn't appreciate being called a 'little girl' – after all, she was almost twelve already – but she wasn't about to interrupt this conversation if this Pike fellow was trying in any way to stick up for her.

"We tried our best to do it peacefully," Wenster said.

"Peacefully." Pike shook his head. "You're not going to like what I'm about to say to you, sir…"

"Then you'd be better off not saying it," Wenster replied curtly.

"You're probably right – but you and the others might be worse off if I don't," Pike answered. "The incident several weeks ago with MacMillan..."

He paused meaningfully. Wenster (at least from what Lily could tell from this distance) raised his eyebrows. "That's supposed to be news? I figured that from the beginning."

"When I heard somebody hexed Corrie, I lost it. I went after the first Slytherin I could get my hands on. He said he hadn't done it. I still hung him from the ramparts of the castle to send a message. If he _had_ been the one that did it…"

Pike trailed off again.

"What are you saying?" asked Wenster.

"I'm saying – what if Potter comes out from wherever he's holed up and finds out someone's got his sister hostage? What do you think he's going to do to anybody that gets in his way?" Pike sounded a bit panicked now. "And let alone the rest of his family? He's got – what – four or five cousins that go here as well. And if her father gets wind of this, well, then, God have mercy on our—"

"No one can enter the Hogwarts grounds legally save with the Headmaster's permission – least of all ranked Ministry officials. I'm sure you're familiar with the Non-Interference Act," Wenster explained calmly, talking over him. "So we have nothing to worry about on that last front."

He whirled around and, alarmingly, began striding in her direction. He loomed over her, and Lily, who had never seen him this close, only then realized how tall he was.

"No one harmed you, correct?" he asked brusquely, almost as if he cared much less about her actual well-being than he did about the possible consequences of her being less than well.

"They beat down a boy from my House and hexed one of my classmates," Lily answered, not meeting his eyes. Because his eyes were intimidating.

"Regrettable," Wenster replied in the same cold, uncaring tone. Lily heard the unspoken part of the statement – _He shouldn't have gotten in the way._ "But it's as I said… she's untouched."

"We have her here against her will," Pike said. "That's going to be reason enough. If this is the move, we need to pull everyone back here so no one's off on their own."

"You overestimate that boy's power," Wenster answered. "His marks in Transfiguration are fair – not great."

"He's also the best duelist in his year. And he's got a best mate that's a fairly close second. He's a Potter."

"He's a fourteen-year-old boy with delusions of grandeur," replied Wenster dismissively. "He thinks his name means he can flout law and order. I'll give you that he has a bit of talent and a strong bloodline. That said… I've forgotten ten times as much magic as he's ever learned. I think I can handle him."

"I don't doubt you can, sir," Pike said. "But can the others?"

"You worry too much," Wenster said. "Besides, Mr. Temple and Mr. Vaisey should be along soon with our other… person of interest."

Lily's heart jumped into her throat.

"…Wish it could be his brother, but that would have caused too much of a scene," Wenster muttered. Pike heard him and made a face.

"Where's the Headmaster?" Pike asked.

"He'll be along, with the others," Wenster said. "We're in no rush. They can't do much for us until _he_ shows himself."

He let out a sigh.

"It's my fault," he said solemnly. "I suppose I've grown a bit soft in my old age. I thought, maybe, the Potter boy might be something other than his father's son. Instead, he's Harry Potter all over again, minus any of the achievements or humility."

"You can't really blame him," Pike reasoned. "I guess if _I_ was the son of two of the most famous wizard families in Britain…"

Pike turned his wrist.

"They're late," Wenster murmured, his mouth turned down with disapproval.

"Maybe they ran into… trouble?" Pike suggested.

"Against a first year? I'd hope not," Wenster replied vehemently.

Just then, the groaning of the lift that led up to this tower signaled the arrival of more guests. The first form she saw was bound and hunched…

THUMP. Something or someone struck it, and it teetered forward into the room, landing on its front.

Lily took a step closer, recognizing a cloud of brown curls as the figure struggled against its binds.

"HUGO!" she screamed, forgetting her surroundings as she broke into a run.

" _Pesperdes!"_

Something unseen caught the front of Lily's toes as she ran. One horrible second later, she had hit the ground face-first, her hands not quick enough to break her fall. Awful pain shot through her mouth as her teeth pierced the flesh on her lips. An awful burn and the taste of blood followed not long after. Then, a force on the neck of her robes.

"Now, now, Miss Potter – let's not do anything rash," Wenster's voice said from behind her. Through her blurred vision, she saw Hugo thrashing on the ground, unable to move for the knee that was being driven into his back. "Temple, _enough._ "

"Stop – struggling!" Lily heard someone snarl.

"Oi!" Pike rushed over, grabbing the arm of Hugo's assailant and trying to wrest him away. "What the hell's wrong with you?! We're not supposed to hurt them!"

"Get out of it, Pike," came another voice, this one younger. Lily's eyes started to focus and she saw a boy, not as old as any of the other three lads, walk into view. "He's in a bad mood. We've already lost Audrey…"

" 'Lost' Audrey?" repeated Pike, a panic seizing his voice again. "What do you mean, we 'lost' her?"

"It's like I thought," the burliest of the boys, whom Pike was still trying to hold back, gestured wildly around Pike's head and in Lily's direction. "She decided she couldn't be a part of this anymore. She didn't have the stomach for it. Should've figured. Her heart's not in it. She's half-and-half as is…"

"Temple, _enough_!" Wenster shouted, and it made Lily's ears hurt. "We start looking down on wizards for their blood status, we're no better than the Slytherins!"

"I don't mean she's half-Muggle. _I'm_ half-Muggle. Why would I say that?" Temple queried. "She's all wizard… half-American. She would've been at Ilvermorny or the Oasis, if her parents had stayed together… and her mother was a Ravenclaw, to boot. She doesn't have it in her like we do. Never did."

"Maybe because she got sick of seeing you kick around people that are smaller than you," Pike said. "Ever considered that?"

"Ever considered that the rest of us are getting tired of your attitude?" the somewhat smaller boy snapped.

"Vaisey, stop it. Pike, go and guard the entrance," Wenster instructed.

Pike turned around, "Sir—"

"Pike – I _wasn't asking_ ," Wenster cut him off. Lily saw Pike's nostrils flare – but he did as told. Once he had descended the lift and was out of sight, Lily felt Wenster let her go. A moment later, something hard hit the bends in her legs behind her knees, and she heard Wenster's voice command: " _Sit."_

Lily silently did nothing.

" _Sit down,"_ Vaisey snarled at her.

"Vaisey," Wenster warned once again. Lily wasn't sure she had ever seen true _hatred_ in another person's eyes before. He was taller than she was, his head covered with short hair of a washed-out shade of blond. Those hateful, hazel eyes had a piercing quality to them, the black pupils in the middle seemingly a size smaller than they should have been. They gave him the look of someone liable to snap at a moment's notice. "Mr. Temple, remove the hex. Weasley won't be able to talk otherwise."

The larger lad named Temple pointed his wand down and at Hugo's face.

"What are you doing?!" Lily shouted.

"Keep talking and he'll do you next!" Vaisey barked.

" _ENOUGH!"_ Wenster yelled. A brief flash of fear darted across Vaisey's face and he went silent. Temple muttered an incantation, and Hugo's mouth opened – or, rather, reappeared – unleashing a torrent of profanities and other imprecations.

"And when my mother finds out about this," he snarled, "she's going to have the whole lot of you bastards strung up by the—"

Temple well and truly lost his temper. "You're in front of our Head of House! Show some respect!"

Hugo stopped, shot a look of pure venom Temple's way, and then looked at Wenster. "Fine. You've got me. Let _her_ go."

He had pointed in Lily's direction with his head, in case the others weren't smart enough to pick up his meaning.

"We can't do that," Wenster replied very simply. "We need something from both of you."

He looked from Lily to Hugo, and then back to Lily.

"What we need," he said, "is information."

 **James**

"It's not your lucky day, mate."

James hated himself for it, but there was a pang of frustration when this new presence brought everything to a halt. The tiniest, nastiest, darkest part of him had wanted to tear Phillip Bletchley a new orifice. But he couldn't well sneak attack someone whose guard was already lowered. Besides, the shock had frozen him.

Bletchley's eyes quivered in something resembling fear – an understandable reaction to someone stepping out of the shadows and putting their wand to your throat unexpectedly. But such was his shock that even after his aggressor stood down, he remained frozen, his eyes trained on her, waiting for another move.

"Walk away," she advised. "It's three on one. You can't win. I don't want to have to hurt you, but I will."

Bletchley scowled at her.

"Lilith," Scorpius called. James did a double take, unaware the two knew each other well enough to be on a first-name basis. Sure enough, the girl turned to look at them. Something in her eyes changed a bit.

"Scorpius," she replied. The faintest trace of a smirk crossing her face, she asked. "Always where the trouble is, aren't you?"

"What are you doing here?" Scorpius queried.

"Just in the area," Lilith answered.

"You're lying," Scorpius uttered immediately. Lilith affected a pout.

"That hurts," she said, the tiniest bit of a simper to her voice. "I'm trying to be helpful and _you're_ questioning my motives. I thought we understood each other."

Scorpius opened his mouth halfway to say something, but nothing came out. He swallowed. His eyes hardened. "Stay out of this."

"Bit late for that, isn't it?" Lilith queried grimly, pointing with her chin in the direction of the crumpled form on the ground.

Bletchley's nostrils flared. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but that girl you just attacked is Amarilys Pucey, and she's a Slytherin Prefect. Ambrose is going to hear about this."

"No, he's not," Lilith replied with an unsettlingly serene smile, twisting the wand underneath Bletchley's neck and causing him to squirm. "Because then he'd have to hear about you and your Prefect back-shooting Gryffindors in dark hallways when you're supposed to be protecting the dungeon. And I'm sure he wouldn't approve of that, now, would he, Mr. Big-Shot-Quidditch-Player?"

Bletchley grit his teeth.

"Thought not," Lilith said casually.

"We don't have time for this," James said.

Bletchley raised his wand. "You don't get to set the terms here, Potter—"

And something inside James snapped.

" _Expelliarmus!"_ he shouted. Lilith had the wherewithal to duck out of the way, and Bletchley hadn't had the time to react. His wand went spinning out of his hand and bounced against the wall. Bletchley turned around, looking for it. James was not going to let that happen. " _Incarcerous!"_

The rope that shot forth from his wand wrapped around Bletchley's wand arm. He tried to pull away using brute force. But James had looped his own free hand around his end of the rope, was Bletchley's equal in strength, and did not allow him to get far.

" _Let – me – go,"_ Bletchley snarled.

Scorpius frowned. "Bletchley, _seriously_. If you want to find Lily so badly, we can—"

But James's patience had run out entirely.

"Scorpius, don't bother. He doesn't give a damn about Lily," he said coldly. Looking Bletchley in the eye, he asked, "You don't even give a damn about Brynne, do you? Not to where you'd try to understand her. No… getting Brynne to like you, getting to Lily first… it's all about proving you're better than me."

"You failed Brynne," Bletchley said, seething. "She hasn't been the same since—"

"You're useless, you know that?" James interrupted him, yanking on the rope and nearly bringing Bletchley to the ground. "I know I failed. I've spent six months lying awake at night thinking about how I failed. If you really wanted to help, you'd tell me something I don't know already. But you won't. Because you don't care about anyone but yourself. You'd put Lily _and_ Brynne in harm's way if—"

"That's not…"

"I'm not stupid, Bletchley," James interrupted. "You expect me to believe it's an accident you can keep every Slytherin safe except for her?"

"You _must_ be stupid," Bletchley said. "I wasn't _there_. But I guess it's easier to blame me than your own house, isn't it? I bet you think Wenster's some sort of hero."

"I know he's not," James answered.

"You don't know the half of it," Bletchley spat. "He's the one that's got your sister."

A moment of silence.

"What?!" snapped Scorpius. "When the hell were you going to mention that? We're on the wrong floor."

"I thought you knew everything," Bletchley said. "But maybe your dad told you to kiss his arse a bit? Get on his good side? There's _no such thing_. You of all people should know that."

"My parents told me he was part of the Hardliner faction after the war," Scorpius replied.

"That's all they told you about him?" Bletchley queried knowingly. "Because if it is, they didn't tell you everything. Maybe they weren't sure. But we are."

"What are you talking about?" James asked impatiently.

"There's a reason the Progenies formed, and it wasn't Godric's Guard," Bletchley said. "It was Wenster himself. If what we believe about him is true… there's no room for talking. Like I said, no negotiation."

Bletchley set his eyes on James.

"And I know what you're thinking. This doesn't go away when Longbottom comes back, either," he said, shaking his head. "This doesn't leave Hogwarts until Wenster himself does."

"Wenster's a piece of work, I get that," James said. "But this is an awful lot for a teacher you don't like. Why?"

Bletchley's face went still – even somber. It was a look James had never seen from him before. Then his eyes opened, and he fixed on James an intense glare.

"I can't stand you, Potter." He paused there, and an expression resembling relief washed over him, as if he'd been waiting to speak those words for years. "I don't believe for a second you're better than me. I don't think you deserve Brynne any more than I do. But she chose you. She trusts you. She won't ever look at me like she does you. Never."

James hated to think he was happy to hear Bletchley admitting defeat. Because this had never been a game to James. She had never been a prize to be won.

And that was why he was, if not more worthy (Bletchley was right on that point), then slightly more capable.

Slightly.

"You better not prove her wrong," Bletchley said after a moment, shaking his head, talking through his teeth. "If you do anything to hurt her, I will ruin you. I'll throw every ounce of effort I've got into making your life a living hell. So, you take me seriously when I say it: what I'm about to tell you, _Brynne – can't – find – out._ "

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't just threaten me," James answered, nonetheless intrigued by Phillip's behavior. "What does this have to do with Brynne?"

Bletchley's eyes didn't blink.

"Her whole life. Everything."

James took the 'theory' with him, silently contemplating it and all its implications. Rage and a dash of fear battled within him – fear for himself mixed with fear _of_ himself. It was only as they reached the fourth floor, where James knew Lucan Wenster's office was, that anyone spoke.

"So, do you think he was telling the truth?" James queried, suddenly aware of how much his voice was shaking.

"Which part?" Scorpius asked a bit cynically.

James began walking backwards to face Scorpius. "None of that sounded familiar to you?" Scorpius rolled his eyes bitterly. James frowned. "I mean… you'd know, right?"

"Only what my father told me. Which was only what my mum let him," Scorpius said, not meeting James's eye. "Enough to make sure I was aware. Not enough to scare me. They didn't say much of anything about… 'them.' We didn't deal much with them directly."

James turned his back on Scorpius again. "Right. Yeah. Forgot about that."

"Sorry…" Lilith's voice interjected. "Why is this such a big deal? Am I missing something here?"

Scorpius sighed. "The short version – Gryffindor House might be run by a…"

"…Psychopath murderer," James finished. His fists clenched, almost involuntarily.

"Well…" Scorpius uttered haltingly. "They caught them, right? I mean, your father did. The one that's left alive has been in Azkaban for—"

" _That's not good enough!"_ James snapped, whirling around. "If he had anything to do with it, he's just as guilty. Maybe even more."

"Well, for what it's worth," Scorpius muttered. "I think he was talking a load of bollocks."

"But what if he wasn't?" James asked. Scorpius shook his head.

"You believe this guy now?" asked Scorpius. "After everything he's pulled—"

"I mean… it would explain a lot," Lilith remarked. "Like how something like this didn't happen until he became acting Head of Gryffindor House. Or why the Slytherins were so paranoid."

"Sounds like your view on humanity has brightened up a bit," Scorpius commented, with little to no irony.

Lilith scoffed. "I didn't say I _trusted_ him. But then again, I don't have a special hatred for the bloke either. If the theory came from anyone else, would you even be questioning it? It makes too much sense."

Scorpius kept walking and James kept backpedaling. However, Lilith noticeably came to a stop. Or perhaps not so noticeably, as Scorpius had gone several strides before looking to his right for her, only to realize that she was no longer there.

"Changed your mind?" Scorpius asked.

Lilith grimaced. "Nothing personal. But I need to stay low. I did what I could, but I can't take the risk of storming a Professor's office, wands blazing. Not right now. You understand, right?"

She was directing the question toward Scorpius in particular, but he clearly wasn't buying. "I don't think I ever understand when it comes to you."

A joyless smile crossed the girl's face. "Well, maybe if we're not all dead or expelled by tomorrow morning, I can explain myself."

"You'd trust me with that?" Scorpius asked, sounding genuinely surprised. Lilith glanced at him for a long moment… then turned on her heel and walked away.

"She never even explained why she showed up to help us," James said.

"Might not matter in a bit," Scorpius commented. "Are we really going through with this?"

"I am," James answered resolutely. "You can still walk away if you want."

Scorpius shook his head. "No point, really. I'm sure it's gotten all around the Tower about how I sold out Gryffindor House."

"Temple's definitely made sure of that," a voice joined the conversation. James raised his wand immediately as a tall, exhausted-looking teenage boy wearing Gryffindor robes stepped into the light.

"Pike, step aside," James warned. "I'm not in the mood."

"I know you aren't," Pike said, patting in the air with a 'calm down' sort of motion. "But you can't be considering—"

"No, I'm _done_ 'considering,'" James interrupted immediately, leveling his wand at Pike's chest. The tip began to glow with an ominous green light. "Move the hell out of the way."

Pike's face noticeably lost color.

"You… you're bluffing. You can't be serious."

James's own face was stone. "Stand there and find out how serious I am, then."

Pike shook his head. "You're going to end up in Azkaban – or worse."

James bit his lip. "Fair enough. So are they. And so are _you_ , if you don't move."

Pike sighed. "I've done what I can. Guess you lot are just going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions."

And he walked toward James and Scorpius – then between James and Scorpius, then past James and Scorpius.

" _Gryfanc_ ," Pike said significantly. "That's the password. You'd think he would've picked something a bit less obvious, but there you have it."

" _Gryfanc?_ How the hell is that obvious?" James queried impatiently, pocketing his wand.

"Because any Gryffindor history buff would've been able to figure that out," Pike replied. "You lads have fun."

He made to walk off, but Scorpius called after him. "And where are _you_ going?"

"Somewhere that's not here," Pike answered adamantly. "I should've gotten away from this madness a long time ago."

And he trudged down the hallway and out of sight, leaving James and Scorpius, once again, alone.

"Some help that was," Scorpius grumbled. "He could've at least told us who was in the room. There's no way he didn't know."

"I figure it's Temple and Vaisey, at least," James replied. "Those two are the ones with their heads furthest up Wenster's arse."

"We're going to have problems if they're waiting for us," Scorpius pointed out. James had been trying very hard not to care about that part – although now that Scorpius was saying something, James had to concede that he had a point.

"There's no back door," mused James. "You have something else in mind?"

"I thought that would have been pretty obvious," Scorpius was suddenly very grave – and he stared aimlessly at a wall for several moments before finally speaking again. Then, he turned slowly, and leveled his wand at James. "I'm turning you in."

James almost had to smile. "Of course you are."

"Your father saved my father's life _three times_ ," Scorpius said slowly. " _Three times_. That's what got us here."

James grit his teeth, and reached for his back pocket again. His hand closed around his wand, then he brought it forward almost as quick as he could.

Scorpius, of course, was quicker: " _EXPELLIARMUS!"_

James had forgotten how uncomfortable being Disarmed was. It seldom ever happened to him; but when it did, it was like a hammer blow to the forearm. The hand went limp, and whatever it was holding went flying. He turned his head just a bit as the wand went sailing past it. When he faced Scorpius again, he was obscured behind an encroaching, blinding, red light as he shouted an incantation…

And then everything went black.


	17. State of the Fic Address - FPB LIVES

Hi everyone,

I know it's been a while since you heard from me. Okay, about half a year.

I just popped in to tell everyone that both I _and_ this series are still very much alive. I ran into a bit of a snag when, long story short, I lost my computer and with it all of my files. (Yes, I know. "Why the blue hell didn't you back your stuff up somewhere?!" The thought crossed my mind at a point but I couldn't be bothered with actually taking the time to do it. Dumb mistake.) This may be a blessing in disguise, though. I had three or four chapters planned out already but wasn't entirely satisfied with the direction they were going. I'm hoping this gives me the chance to do a bit of a soft reset and get back to making this a story all of us can be happy with.

I can't promise _when_ the next chapter will be up, and without access to my own computer at the moment, I'm only going to be able to work so fast and so often. But I can promise that it _will_ be up. Basically, **assume this fic is still alive until I say otherwise.**

Thanks for all your patience, and I hope to give you something more to read than this boring, unsatisfying spiel before too long.

\- MH


	18. Chapter 17: Allies From On High

_**Author's Note:**_

 _Before you start reading, I felt like I would be remiss if I did not take a bit of time to thank each and every one of you for your patience in sticking out the recent unexpected hiatus up to this point. I hope you find this chapter and everything that comes after it worth the wait._

 **Chapter 17: Allies from On High**

Brynne braced herself against another involuntary urge to shiver. The space in the room between wall and wall, between floor and ceiling, amplified the whispering crackle of the fire at the hall's end, making it sound closer, larger, and warmer than it truly was. Even here, a few steps away – much too close, her aunt would probably chide her – she was having a hard time feeling its warmth. It reached at her with tentative fingers but did not seem to have the daring to grasp or fully embrace her.

"You'll singe your hair standing that close."

And there it was. Her heart sank. He had really come over all this way.

"You worry too much," she answered, feigning a smile as she whirled around. Her other side needed thawing anyway. "Besides, _you_ should be off that foot."

"I'm off it." Rowan's tone was almost petulant, as if he knew the answer he was giving wouldn't be satisfactory. He was perched precariously between a pair of crutches he didn't seem to have completely figured out yet. As he said, though, his injured ankle, still shod, hovered a couple of inches off the ground as he balanced himself awkwardly on the crutches and his other leg.

Brynne shook her head. "You know that's not what I mean."

"Well, what do you want me to do?" asked Rowan. "I had to come check on you."

"I wouldn't say that you 'had' to," Brynne replied, a bit defiantly.

"You don't need to be cold about it," Rowan said, averting his eyes and looking genuinely wounded. "What's with the hard-arse act? Listen." He dropped his voice to a near whisper. "You may not know or trust some of these others, but you can trust me. I'm on your side. I told you that back in the summer. Besides…" He paused, as if to follow his silence with something impactful. Still, when it came out, his tone was cautious. "We're as good as family now, so…"

Brynne must have made a face that looked like disapproval, because Rowan immediately followed up with, "Come on, don't look at me like that. You and I both know it's only a matter of time. You yourself said you wouldn't mind once, remember?"

It wasn't that Brynne wasn't happy for her Aunt Flora; she was. Oddly enough, it was right before Rowan and his uncle had dropped out of the sky that she and Aunt Flora had been discussing how sad it was that, among the things she had given up in moving to the Orchard, one was the chance to find love. The men that came through Morgana's Orchard typically stayed a night or a fortnight - maybe a month - and then left. It did tend to be for love if and when they did settle down - but usually that was with one of the ladies in the village that were not already raising children. At first blush, Flynn wasn't much different than those others. As Flora and Brynne got to know him, though, they realized his story was less that of an escaped convict or semi-reformed scoundrel than of a roguish drifter who simply liked his freedom. His brother and parents - Rowan's father and grandparents - had all died years ago. Brynne heard Flora comment once on how sad she thought that was, to which Flynn, with one of the twinkling smiles that had no doubt sent Flora's heart aflutter, simply replied, "Having no one to please isn't the worst thing in the world."

Of course, that wasn't entirely true, Brynne knew - and she had the feeling her aunt knew as well. After all, as soon as word had reached his ears that Rowan's only other family was dead, Flynn had dropped whatever it was he was doing (apparently some business with a vampire he didn't want to get into details about) and made sure to be at King's Cross to take Rowan into his care before the poor boy was shipped off to a Muggle orphanage. The latter may have been a sight more stable, admittedly; that didn't mean that it was healthy. Although Rowan had been brought up by Muggle family, Muggles likely wouldn't have been able to understand him, let alone be able to help him find out more about the Wizarding world that was still so new to him. At worst, he would have been cut off completely, unable to live out his true identity as a wizard. And for what it was worth, Brynne had heard tell of more than one awful story about the things that could happen to a wizard child cut off from his or her own kind.

None of that had happened, though. Flynn had come; and Rowan was much, much better for it. Gone was the shy young boy Brynne had first met not long after the death of his Muggle family. Rowan was impressive in his own way; intelligent, wise beyond his years, with an understanding of the world in which he lived that far outstripped his experience with it. And a constant, unquenchable thirst to learn more. They were not dissimilar in that way. He understood her in a way that only a few others did.

"No one's come for us," Rowan remarked uncertainly. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Depends on which direction you're looking," Brynne replied nearly immediately, glancing over her shoulder at the fireplace again.

Rowan lowered his voice. "Do you think it went through?" he asked, his voice a nervous murmur.

"No way of knowing," Brynne asked. "Not unless he comes."

"Do you think he will?"

Brynne frowned. "Part of me hopes so. Part of me hopes not."

"Hopes not?" asked Rowan, confused. "Why's that?"

Brynne didn't answer him. In fact, she walked by him without a word - partly because she noticed someone else approaching her.

"Did it work?" the other girl asked, a serious grimace behind the half-moon spectacles that annoyed Brynne in a way she couldn't fully explain. She tried to brush her annoyance to the side.

"Did what work?" she asked.

Serra tilted her head in a 'don't-toy-with-me' sort of expression. "I'm not stupid, Brynne. You were trying to get a hold of McGonagall, weren't you?"

"McGonagall?" Brynne replied. "God, no."

Serra wasn't used to being wrong, and Brynne was almost ashamed to admit to herself that she got a bit of enjoyment out of seeing the other girl's expression. "Why not? It's what I would have done."

"You and McGonagall have met before, haven't you?" Brynne replied. "Honestly, I don't think either of us has the pull to call in that sort of favor. And even if I did… it just doesn't sit right with me."

"Doesn't sit right with you?" Serra sounded a little bit irritated at this response, but kept her calm.

"We shouldn't have to rely on anyone else to protect this place for us," Brynne said simply.

"Maybe we won't have to, one day," Serra said. "But for now…"

"What if no one comes next time?" Brynne raised her voice, and it began grabbing the attention of some of the others in the room. The Albertine brothers looked up. "What if no one comes this time?"

"Then we lose," Serra answered, raising her eyebrows in what Brynne thought was a maddeningly casual expression.

"That's it?" Brynne queried. "We lose."

"Listen, I don't care about getting expelled," Serra said, folding her arms. "There, I said it."

"This isn't about getting expelled," Brynne said. "This isn't even about _us_. This is about what we'd be leaving behind."

"You want to save Hogwarts. I get it," Serra argued. Leaning forward as if Brynne would not get her point otherwise, she questioned, "What if we can't? Even more than that – what if we shouldn't?"

A _long_ silence followed Serra's query. Brynne simply stared at her.

"You're saying you _want_ Hogwarts to be destroyed?" Rowan asked across the room.

"'Want' isn't the right word, maybe," Serra commented. "If something that's stood forever can't be saved, maybe that's because it's time for something else to take its place. Let's think about this for a moment. Why are we all here? Why are we all in this situation?"

Nobody answered – maybe because they couldn't settle on one, and perhaps because they knew Serra was about to try to make a point.

"We're here because," Serra said, "when we were eleven, we sat underneath an old hat in front of a room full of people, and the hat told us and everybody else around us what our dominant character traits were supposed to be and where we belonged in this society. It's been a thousand years and no one's seen the slightest thing wrong with that?"

"Can we get out of here first before we start discussing how to break the entire Sorting system?" Murphy stood and asked, with rather more snark in his tone than was typical. Serra's jaw visibly tightened.

"Of course we can. And maybe, by some miracle, we not only manage to _not_ get expelled, but get rid of the Progenies, Godric's Guard, whoever else needs to go…" Serra answered. "Then what? We wait a few years and do it all over again? Leave it for someone else? Everything… _everything_ … comes back down to that hat."

"So what's your play?" asked Rowan. "Find the Hat and destroy it or something?"

"Hadn't thought of that, but now that you mention it…" Serra cupped her chin.

There was a _long_ silence after this. Most of them very obviously didn't know how to react to Serra's suggestion.

It was Richard Murphy who finally did, shaking his head and saying, "That's mad, Serra."

"Almost as mad as trying to remove a Head of House by force," Serra countered, glancing at Brynne with a knowing lift of her eyebrows.

" _Acting_ Head of House," Brynne said insistently, glancing over her shoulder again for a moment. "Is that why you came to help us?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," Serra replied, smoothing down her blonde locks. "More than usual, I mean. So much thinking that it took me almost three years to arrive at what it turns out is a really simple answer. If all the problems Hogwarts has right now are a direct result of tension between the Houses… the tension exists because the Houses exist. And the Houses exist because the Sorting exists. You get rid of the Sorting… that takes care of the other problems. Tell me I'm wrong."

She looked around, as if daring someone to defy her logic.

"It's not bad logic," Murphy admitted. Then, looking away from her, he added, "It almost never _is_ bad logic. But we can't bring that off, and you know it."

"That's the establishment in you talking," Serra replied with a bit of bite. Her body language, though, indicated that something Murphy had just said or done, had touched a nerve. She shook her head and gave Murphy a look that couldn't be mistaken for anything but pity. "That's what bothered me the most, Richard. I really thought you were better than that."

"Better?" Murphy repeated, clearly needled. "I step outside the lines when it's necessary, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be lines at all."

"You're _wrong_ ," Serra raised her voice, cutting across the end of Murphy's sentence. "In this case, that's _exactly_ what it means."

"Serra's right," Mark Albertine chimed in. At that moment, it didn't matter that the ceiling to this hall was probably some hundred feet in the air - Murphy's eyes were trying their level best to hit it. "We've got fellow students ready to kill each other and, for what? Some colors on a bloody banner? I'm all for fixing structures that can be fixed, but I don't even know if this _can_ be fixed, let alone whether it should."

"You're all missing the point," Brynne finally said, her voice much calmer than she felt.

"It might be a valid point," Kadric Howell observed. He had been sitting silently next to Lena, who'd had her head down and hadn't said as much as a word.

"Hogwarts is on fire," Brynne said firmly. "We can talk about ways to keep it from happening again after we put this one out."

Serra stared a hole through Brynne for a long time. Then she tore her eyes away from her.

"Well... I hope James succeeds," Serra finally said, glancing at Brynne and then Murphy.

Brynne swallowed hard. Serra hadn't realized the impact of what she had just said. Probably because she hadn't looked in his eyes, touched his hand, felt his intentions in her inmost being, even though he hadn't spoken them aloud…

It was then, oddly, that the animus and jealousy she had felt for Serra for two years and not been quite able to explain, evaporated. _I won,_ she thought to herself, _if there was anything to win to begin with._

Any other day, any other moment, the thought would have overjoyed her. Today, though, it failed to provide her even the smallest shred of comfort. After all, given the circumstances, how could it?

She simply looked down at her shoes. She'd been wearing them almost all the time recently - because this castle did not feel like home at the moment.

"I'm not sure I do," she murmured, mostly to herself. Serra heard her, though, and her expression changed.

Neither had any time to dwell on the implications of Brynne's statement, though; there was a quiet _whoosh_ , and Brynne perceived a drastic change in the room's lighting. The color had shifted, from a warm to something cooler, brighter, almost greenish. Serra's eyes widened - she was looking in the direction of the hearth and had already seen something. Brynne turned around.

Visible despite the crackling _green_ flames and the distance, a disembodied head floated in the fireplace.

"I thought I had left clear instructions that I was _not_ to be contacted by anyone less than Headmaster Flitwick himse-"

Brynne kept her distance, let the head turn from side to side and take in the sight of the room.

"What in Merlin's name…" the head whispered.

Then it - he - and the flame itself, disappeared.

Silence.

"God," Rowan uttered. "That was our best -"

"Wait," Brynne interrupted and implored him, staring intently at the now-dead fireplace.

"Brynne," Serra and Murphy approached at either of Brynne's sides. Brynne found indeed that the surge of irritation that coursed through her seemingly whenever Serra spoke, no longer existed. "Was that-"

" _Wait_ ," Brynne repeated, still staring at the fireplace and its embers.

Brynne counted slowly in her head to ten… then twenty…

Then thirty…

Then forty.

It took so long that even her confidence began to flag a bit… but it happened: an eruption of emerald flames that turned the whole hall green with their flickering light. The fireplace could barely contain them, and they surely would have burned anyone standing too closely to a crisp - if these green flames were capable of burning anything.

A man strode forth from the hearth, tall and straightbacked, and into the hall. His footfalls were two or three simple taps that echoed in the hall's silence and space, but for all the gravitas with which he walked they might as well have been making the earth tremble. Other than a black cloak doubleted by the Hogwarts emblem, he appeared as normal as normal could be with a black shirt (that admittedly sported some fine golden buttons) and matching black slacks. A beard had come in on his rounded face, which joined with his expression to make him look so intimidating that no one dared approach him. Brynne bit her lip as she watched realization set in on the man's visage. It fell, and he looked around the hall again, his legs and feet with him this time as he did a full turn by steps to take everything in. Everyone could hear his ragged, uneven breaths in the silence. Finally, he spoke, a mixture of agony, nostalgia, and even reverence in his cracked, near-whisper of a sentence:

"I haven't been in here in more than twenty years."

Maybe it was in that moment that Brynne realized what she had just done. And maybe it was because things had been so close to the surface for her for so long. Either way the remark struck her in the chest, closed her throat and teared her eyes instantly. Which was awful timing, as the man was now standing in front of, and looming over, her:

"Brynne Walter."

She couldn't look at him at first - not even when he repeated her name a second time. "Brynne." Then, she felt something - a hand on her shoulder. She went to grasp it, but found that there was nothing there. It was odd… the touch had felt so real, yet so gentle…

Whatever it had been, _whomever_ it had been, whether it had even been real or not, it redoubled her courage - gave her the nerve to look up and into the man's face. And, yes, she shed a tear or two because her eyes at this juncture could not disallow them. In a way, it was cathartic. And, in a way, it bonded them, because she knew that the man that stood before her now had worn that same desperation and fervor.

"I couldn't think of any other way, Professor," she finally said.

 _Professor_ was his official Hogwarts title, and the way she had addressed her message. But it was also the role he had put on - and admirably, at that - for peacetime, and not whom she had meant to summon.

Judging by the look in his eyes, it was not who had arrived to aid them, either.

"I know," he said solemnly, his blue eyes showing not anger, but understanding. " _This_ room doesn't open for just anything. Now… tell me what's happened."

 **Albus**

"It's way too quiet out here for a Sunday afternoon," remarked Roxanne as she led Albus and Rose through the halls, which appeared to not only be quiet, but _deserted_. Albus had been here over two years and couldn't remember ever seeing _no one_ walking the castle in the middle of the day. Other than glimpses of a few distant ghosts (one of which he saw commenting to another about how quiet it was), he hadn't seen a single soul.

"Maybe word's gotten out about the attacks to the other Houses, too?" Albus theorized.

Gryffindor and Slytherin had probably - justifiably - been confined to their common rooms. Yet Albus had seen neither hide nor hair of a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw for most of the afternoon. It seemed that even the teachers were missing.

"Not even Peeves," Roxanne commented. "It's a little spooky."

"Peeves not being around I'm fine with," Albus replied. Peeves was the school poltergeist - and the way Albus's father had put it, he had a nasty habit of showing up at the most inconvenient times, particularly when students were doing something to which they did not want to draw attention.

Roxanne looked over her shoulder. "You should have stayed back, Al."

"Lily might be in trouble," Albus answered. And that was the sum and total of that conversation. Roxanne hadn't even bothered trying to dissuade Rose from following. Albus couldn't blame her, either. Rose hadn't made a sound since they had left the common room, and she currently had a very frightening stare in her brown eyes.

With his mind and his eyes elsewhere, Albus didn't notice when Roxanne came to a halt in front of him. She didn't raise any sort of protest, though, when he, with a grunt of "oof-", walked directly into her back. Instead, she held her arm out in front of them. Rose noticed as well and stopped, although not without glaring at Roxanne mutinously.

"Hold it," Roxanne whispered. She turned forward again. Roxanne wasn't very tall (which was odd because both her parents and brother were) but she was still taller than Albus, who had to crane his neck around her to see what she was looking at.

Or whom.

There was a girl walking toward them, probably an older student. She was very tall and not skinny (although certainly not fat, either). In any case, she was visibly bigger than any of them, and coming at them quickly - which would have made her quite intimidating if not for the fact that she was rubbing her eyes and appeared to be crying.

"Wren!" a boy's voice shouted. "Wren, hang on a second!"

A tall boy approached out of the distant shadows at a bit of a run. He had Gryffindor accents on his robes and Albus recognized him.

"Wren, wait -"

" _Geroff!"_ the young man had tried to put an arm around Wren's shoulder (which would have looked a bit odd, seeing as he was giving up an inch or two and a couple of stone), but she wrenched herself away from him.

"Pike!" Roxanne exclaimed. Neither of the two other Gryffindor students seemed to have noticed them; both jumped. Pike's wand was out in a flash.

"You're not supposed to be out here," he said, eyeing all of them. He was trying to sound authoritative but Albus could notice the shadow of worry in his eyes - like he had just run into someone that he had not wanted to see. "Wenster said all the Gryffindors had to stay inside their common room."

"So you know where he is?" Roxanne asked. "We need to have a talk with him."

There was a tone in Roxanne's voice that indicated (a bit alarmingly to Albus) that this 'talk' wasn't intended to be a particularly long conversation. Pike had heard it too - he cringed.

"Not you, too…" he groaned. Shaking his head, he swore at a mutter, "Dammit. That's why I tried to tell him…"

" _Petrificus Totalus!"_

Albus felt his hair ruffle as a blinding jet of light zoomed quickly through his vision like a camera flash. He heard a scream while his eyes were still trying to recover. When they finally did, Wren Audrey was on her back, stiff as a board, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, which had hit and bounced off the ground nastily. Albus's expression falling into one of horror, he gradually looked over his shoulder to find the source of the spell.

Rose Weasley had her wand still outstretched, wires of coily auburn hair falling over her icy gaze.

Pike was supine a few feet away, having dodged the jinx on instinct. With a groaned swear, he jumped to his feet and ran over to check on Wren. He put a hand to her face, then tapped it lightly.

"God," he whispered. Standing, he raised his voice to a shout: "She's out cold - what the hell's wrong with you?!"

"Rose!" Roxanne tried to scold, but Rose was _not_ listening.

Albus barely got between her and Pike as she stretched her wand out past his head and snapped, " _You son of a bitch!_ "

"Rose, _stop it_ ," Albus begged her, trying to push her back. He was angry at himself - he should have reacted faster, he thought. Or better yet, he should have dragged her back into the common room and not allowed her to follow Roxanne at all.

"We're going to ask you this once, Isaac," Roxanne said. They were just well enough acquainted to be on a first name basis, as they had a mutual friend in Tommy Jordan and sat together at lunch once upon a time. But Roxanne's tone was grim; she did not sound like she was speaking to an old friend at all. "If you know where Wenster took Hugo, tell us."

Pike grimaced and didn't meet Roxanne's eye. "...No."

"No?" Rose repeated.

"We're not a part of Godric's Guard anymore," Pike announced, in a tone that clearly said he was intending to get to this piece of information had anybody stopped long enough to listen. "That puts Cora in enough danger to begin with-"

"You're an idiot," Rose snarled. "If anything's happened to Hugo, Wenster's going to be the _least_ of Coraline's problems."

Pike's mouth set into a firm line. "Don't you threaten my sister."

"You're standing between me and my brother," Rose countered in an eerily calm voice. "So, it's fair play. An eye for an eye."

Rose elbowed Albus out of the way and stepped in front of him.

"I get that you're upset," Pike replied, trying to defuse her.

"Yet you're not helping," Rose answered.

"I did my bit," Pike bit back.

"Really? And what was that?" Rose queried, snapping each word like a whip.

"I was supposed to be guarding Professor Wenster's office, in case someone came for the students he had taken," Pike explained. "Someone came. I let them go by."

"Oh," Roxanne said. "How nice of you."

"Hold on," Albus caught something in Pike's wording that didn't sit right. "You said… 'students'? More than one? Who else does Wenster have up there?"

Pike looked away for a moment, as if ashamed, and didn't speak. This tested Rose's already frayed patience.

"Stop effing with us and talk," she demanded.

After a few more moments, Pike did talk - but when he did, his voice and eyes were directed right at Albus.

"Your brother was the one Wenster really wanted," he said. "...So he grabbed the only other person that could bring James Potter out of hiding."

 **James**

"Potter."

"Potter."

The voice calling him sounded distant and airy, like an echo without the original sound. It was barely audible, in fact, over the high-pitched ringing assaulting his ears. When he finally managed to open his impossibly heavy eyes, every light was much too bright.

" _Potter_!"

 _Slap._

He blacked out again for a split-second - or maybe several minutes. His sense of time was completely off. But the one thing of which he was painfully conscious was a fresh burning sensation on one of his cheeks, to go along with the ringing in his ears and the dull throb in his skull.

His eyes almost focused.

"Potter," the voice repeated. "How many fingers?"

James squinted and tried to count the blurry, shifting digits.

"Five… no, seven… six? Three. It's three."

"Three," the voice's bearer withdrew his hand, walked over to the other side of whatever room they were in, and sat. It must not have been too large a room because he didn't walk far at all. "You know, my dad dabbles in alchemy in his spare time. He's got a lot of spare time. Doesn't need to work - and even if he did, I doubt there's a place in Britain that'd hire him… he says three's the second most magically powerful number behind seven."

James sighed weakly, looking upward. He wasn't in the mood to make small talk with this person. In fact, he would be punching this person in the face repeatedly if he could only lift his arms and get there.

"A triple life debt," the person - a boy or young man by the sound of the voice James could finally hear more clearly - mused. "That's not easily cleared, you know… My dad knows."

"You think he'd be proud of you?" James finally managed to choke out.

"'You'll always be questioned if you appear to do the right thing.' That's what he told me once. 'That's the curse of carrying this name on.'"

"That's your excuse?" James almost had to smile - and might have even tried it if his face didn't currently feel like one massive bruise. He looked up into the light, found it much too bright, and squinted. "You're a real bastard, Malfoy."

"And everyone knows it," Malfoy's voice answered. "Now, get up. We're almost there."

James felt a hand gripping around his bicep, yanking him upward to his feet. His leaden legs managed to halfway cooperate as Malfoy 'helped' him into an unsteady lean against the nearby wall. Malfoy's pale face was stiff, inscrutable. The flickering lights (although James wasn't sure if it was the lights going in and out or his own consciousness at this point) threw into relief a nasty-looking swell of indigo under Malfoy's left eye. Ironically, James didn't remember dealing that out. Maybe he'd gotten it in the fight on the seventh floor and James had just never seen it properly.

His thoughts turned to the Come and Go Room.

 _I'm sorry,_ he thought, hoping somehow that thought would reach her. Maybe, he hoped against hope, they could still find a way to stay in touch somehow. Then again, maybe it wouldn't work. Maybe, the sad thought crossed his mind, it was never going to from the beginning…

He felt something jar underneath him, which caused his knees to buckle.

"Do you hate me for going about it like this?" Malfoy asked.

It took a second for the word to reach his lips, but James finally croaked: "Yes."

"Good," Malfoy answered. "Potter. Look me in the eye."

James's head was bowed with pain, but he did.

The other boy swallowed. "This is for my father."

His gray eyes stared at James, into him, almost _through_ him… then they darted away for the slightest moment.

Something clicked into place in James's brain…

"SLIMY GIT!" he snapped. Ignoring his aching body, James lunged forward, his hands scrabbling for Malfoy's throat. Malfoy grabbed at his wrists but James was bigger and stronger, and pinned him to the far wall. Malfoy's face was reddening in the struggle, twisted with effort and fury…

James crumpled almost instantly, pain starting roughly where his legs met and coursing through his limbs. His hands went to the offending area by instinct, and as he slumped to the floor, he could see Malfoy lowering the knee that had struck him.

" _NO!"_ a screech broke the fog of agony. Hearing the voice, James reacted on instinct and started to rise again, but found two wands pointed directly down at his forehead.

"DON'T MOVE!" Malfoy snarled, a hint of desperation in his gray eyes as they trembled and then darted in another direction again. Through his teeth and quieter this time, he repeated, " _Don't - bloody - move."_

" _JAMES!"_ the screechy, panicked voice yelled again. " _JAMES!"_

"Shut the...what?" another boy's voice started to snap and then uttered questioningly. " _You?!_ "

"Malfoy?" another voice shouted. "What the hell are you doing there?"

James felt Malfoy's hand on the scruff of his robes. Based on the voices and his current situation, he knew he was hopelessly outnumbered, much less disarmed. He didn't attempt to resist.

With a show of what must have looked like considerable strength to any witnesses, Malfoy yanked James by his robes and pitched. James left the ground for a second, hit it again, and rolled, redoubling his pain on several of the bruises on his body. He failed to hold back a swear as he landed yet again on his shoulder, which had been dodgy for most of this hellish afternoon…

"Wenster's not here." James heard the voice of Eamonn Temple. "Hate to break it to you, but he's the one you're going to have to answer to."

"And he's even less forgiving than we are," Stephan Vaisey's voice joined in.

"You think I need forgiveness from you?" Malfoy asked, and then chuckled. "Wenster and I will talk later, but you… you crossed a line, ' _friend'."_

"I'm not your 'friend," Vaisey snapped.

"Good," Malfoy replied. "Because you're a shit friend… which I tried to tell Lena about a dozen times."

"What's she got to do with this?" Vaisey asked.

"James!" James heard the voice again, calmer this time. He sat up and looked over his shoulder. From the chair she was tied to, Lily's eyes were staring at him. Even from this distance, something looked… _off_ about them. Something he couldn't put his finger on. Hugo was tied in another chair next to her, silently looking on.

"I'm fine," he managed to choke out, hoping it would assuage her terror. It didn't, of course. In fact, she looked even more terrified.

"'Fine'? You don't have a right to be 'fine.'" James only figured out why Lily looked so terrified when he felt a hand pull him up by the hair. Hilariously, it was at this juncture that he thought he perhaps should have listened to his mother and let her trim it back in the summer. The brief moment of levity passed in brutal fashion, however. He was yanked around right into what he was reasonably sure had been a fist.

On the ground for what felt like the hundredth time, his vision doubled as he heard his sister yell his name again.

"Temple!" James heard Malfoy shout. "Knock it off."

"I thought that's what I was doing." Temple had himself a chortle at James's expense. "The git was smiling, so I knocked it off."

"Funny," Malfoy replied, his voice completely deadpan. "But in all seriousness, they're going to need Potter to talk - which he can't do properly if he has fat lips and no teeth."

"He also can't properly hex anyone if he has fat lips and no teeth," Temple said. "That occur to you?"

"Of course it did, you idiot. That's why I took his wand," Malfoy answered immediately, his voice now impossibly deadpan. James almost had to laugh despite himself; but he knew this would only invite another punch, so he held it in.

James righted himself to a kneel just in time for Temple to crouch right in front of him.

"You're screwed, Potter," he sneered. "Hope you know that. You and your band of nobodies."

Completely unprompted, Malfoy said pointedly, "Give him what he wants, Potter. Trust me, it's better that way."

James looked around Temple's shoulder at Malfoy, whose gray eyes narrowed into a near-squint for only a moment.

James turned his eyes back to Temple, who was now smirking. "Let me guess - 'I'll never tell you anything! I'll die first!'"

James shook his head. "Not first."

"What was that?" Temple asked, turning his ear toward James scornfully.

"Not first," James repeated. "Second, maybe third. But at least second."

Temple scoffed. "I don't think you understand how this works, Potter."

"Sure, I do," James answered. "I refuse to give up my friends, then Wenster puts together his kangaroo court and has me chucked out. I get how this works for _me._ I don't think you understand how it works for _you_."

Temple stayed silent.

"I don't need Hogwarts," James said nonchalantly. "Half my family are national heroes. Tutors around Britain will be lining up for the chance to teach a Potter. So I'll have my education all taken care of. You know what else I'll have? Time. Lots and lots and lots of time to figure out new ways to make the lot of you answer for this. _You_ especially."

"You won't be able to touch me here at Hogwarts," Temple replied.

"Don't count on that," replied James. "I've got a big family, a fair number of friends. All of them will be here when I'm gone. And even if they're not…. you're, what, a sixth year? You can't stay here at Hogwarts forever, Temple. You're going to have to graduate and move to the outside world eventually - and this isn't about Godric's Guard or Gryffindor or Slytherin when it comes to you. This isn't even about Hogwarts. _You threatened my sister_. And even if this entire castle burns to the ground tomorrow, that doesn't go away. Knowing that... knowing I'll be somewhere out there waiting for you, knowing I could be _anywhere,_ from the other side of the Isles to _right behind you -_ that's what you're going to have to live with. For as long as I let you, anyway."

Temple's grip on his wand flagged for a second.

"I'm a wizard," he still chuckled, attempting to feign confidence. "I'll manage."

James clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Yeah, that's exactly why you _won't_. I've got family in the highest levels of the Ministry. If what you did to Lily, Hugo, and I gets to them, you really think they can't and won't find you? You're not safe at Hogwarts. You're not safe in London. You're not safe anywhere in Britain."

"Trust me, you don't want to keep talking," Malfoy chimed in. "You Potters really are privileged berks, aren't you?"

Temple actually scoffed. "That's rich coming from you, rich boy."

"There's a reason my family has always been well-off," Malfoy said, walking to Temple's side. "We're good businessmen."

"Good businessmen?" Vaisey snarled from some distance away. "That's what you call it?"

"Means different things to different people," Malfoy conceded. "But the way I was taught… you never let something go for less than what it's worth. Or, to put it another way, you never let anyone get away with robbing you."

Malfoy gazed coldly down at James before turning his back.

"You balance debts as soon as you can," he went on, stepping forward. "Collect what's owed to you and pay back who you owe - if you have to owe anyone at all."

"Everyone knows that," Vaisey replied dismissively.

"If you knew that, then why'd you do it?" Malfoy started over toward Vaisey.

"Don't blame me for that," Vaisey said. "She should've stayed out of the way."

"You don't get it, do you?" Malfoy barked. Then, he took a breath, and lowered his voice. James started watching him walk toward him. "No, of course not. Someone like you would never understand."

"What are you trying to say?" Vaisey snarled from across the room.

"I'm saying there's _nothing_ a Malfoy wouldn't do for family," Malfoy answered. He made somewhat of a showy swish of his cloak. " _Trust me."_

James looked up.

"We may have a reputation for being slimy, underhanded, call it whatever you like… but we will go to _any_ lengths to protect our own. That's the main reason we've survived this long. It's the reason I'm even here."

Scorpius Malfoy once again turned his back on James Potter, pulling his cloak aside a second time and exposing one of the pockets on his slacks. James saw two long, wooden objects hanging from the it, and saw the pale hand visibly brush one of the wooden lengths before switching to grasp the other.

"It's also one of the many things James Potter and I have in common."

James darted forward, pulling one wand from Scorpius's pocket as Scorpius drew the other. He leveled his wand at Stephan Vaisey with no wasted motion, and when the two shouted their incantations, they did so almost as one singular voice: " _EVERTE STATUM!"_

Vaisey was still drawing when the force of the twin jinxes caught him flush, throwing him backward and into a bookshelf with crushing impact before he slumped against it. One of the shelves gave way on one end, sending large books teetering at a dangerous angle before they finally spilled forth from the bookcase, dropping with heavy thuds around Vaisey's prone body. One especially thick tome came down very close to his head, but he regained his senses at that moment, rolled out of immediate danger, and came up firing wildly: " _Diffindo!"_

"AARGH!" James felt tremendous pain in his lower leg as a cuff of his trousers was sliced open, taking a chunk of ankle flesh with it. He staggered, trying to put weight on the ankle but now finding himself unable to do so. When he looked up, Scorpius had already Disarmed Vaisey, so James took his opportunity. " _BRACHIUM-"_

" _STOP!"_

James and Scorpius whirled around.

Eamonn Temple was breathing heavily, his eyes glittering madly as one of his hands gripped his wand, pointing it at the face of the young girl struggling against his other arm.

James's blood ran cold.

"Stop. You leave him alone," Temple snarled through his teeth.

James shook his head, barely able to control his rage. "Let her go."

"You did this, Potter, not me," Temple said. Then, raising his voice, he shouted, "Vaisey! Get to the lift _now!_ "

James heard the sound of uneven, scrambling footsteps behind him, but ignored it. Lily was still struggling against Temple's grip, but with no wand and at roughly half the sixth year's size, it was fruitless at best. Worse, she was starting to panic, her face contorting as her voice and coherence abandoned her: "Help… help me…"

James twitched.

"Think, Potter," Temple advised him. "Don't be _stupid_."

"You haven't been listening," James said, watching Temple walk and drag Lily past Temple and Scorpius. "I told you…"

" _Then I'm dead already and don't have a goddamn thing to lose, do I?!"_ Temple snapped. "So you'd best not do anything rash, right?"

But James knew, as he watched Temple turn, then back into the lift with a tearful Lily as a meat shield, he could do nothing to pry her from the Prefect's grasp without putting Lily herself at risk of harm. What was almost harder to watch was Hugo's reaction, struggling against the chair he was tried to, toppling over, crawling on his knees and face, all the while trying to scream for Lily, even though his sealed mouth made such a thing impossible.

James stood still in shocked silence, surveying some of the damage around the room. Meanwhile, Scorpius, who seemed to be the only person with his wits about him, ducked into James's blind spot as he about trying to free Hugo.

" _Finite Incantatem_ ," Scorpius's voice whispered, almost as if unsure if it would work.

It definitely did.

"LILY!" Hugo shouted at the top of his lungs once his mouth was free to do so. "LILY!"

" _Diffindo,"_ Scorpius went on, untying Hugo from the chair. Then there was a loud _thud_ and a storm of swearing, and it was this that snapped James back to his senses. When he whirled around, Hugo was mounted on Scorpius, throwing furious rights and lefts. Scorpius had been caught by surprise and unable - or perhaps disinclined - to defend himself, eating most to all of the punches. By the time James was able to scramble over (remembering again the awful gash on his ankle) and pull Hugo off Scorpius, the latter's lip and nose were both blossoming blood. Worse still, though, was the look in Scorpius's eyes - a faraway, gray stare. Not a loss of physical consciousness, but rather a loss of something far, far more important. James knew, by that look, that Scorpius would no longer be willing or able to aid him.

James let go of Hugo after shoving him away somewhat, and turned toward the lift, limping in its direction alone. Blood was pounding in his ears and flames were jumping into his throat. Now he knew for sure that the afternoon's business was going to end with him in an Azkaban cell.

And the thing that terrified him, yet spurred him on, was this: he knew that he would never again be able to look at himself in a mirror if it played out any differently.


	19. Chapter 18: Herpestes

**Chapter 18: Herpestes**

"It's really nothing personal, you know."

Lily looked up and glared her best glare at the tall boy at the other corner of the lift, thinking about how easy that must have been to say from where he was standing. To her, seated on the ground with a wand pointed at the side of her head to discourage any sudden movements, it definitely felt personal.

"Why not?" The younger boy, the one with a wand trained on her temple, snarled. Lily cringed and tried not to tear up again. She didn't like him much. At all. There was something very off-putting about his gaze, his demeanor, his entire- "She's a _Slytherin_ , after all."

The tone with which he snapped off the name of her house was almost like one would say a particularly filthy swearword. She could feel the hate radiating from him, like heat from a merciless Sun torching her very insides. He had been the one that had hexed the young boy that had tried to stick up for her when Godric's Guard had come across them in the hallways. The bespectacled young lad had been prepared for a fight, but not a sneak attack.

The boy looked down at her and smiled a smile more frightening than his usual look of rage she had become accustomed to seeing.

"All worth it just for the look on Malfoy's face."

Something happened in Lily's stomach when she brought up Malfoy… an unfamiliar roiling of sorts. And it brought out an odd instinct.

"Malfoy's twice the person you'll ever be."

The boy tilted his head quizzically. Lily didn't meet his eyes. She knew she was right; only, she wasn't exactly sure why she'd had such a strong compulsion to say such a thing.

"So you're a Slytherin and you fancy the Malfoys," he finally replied. With a disdainful scoff, he queried, "You _sure_ you're a Potter? Maybe you're adopted or something."

Factually, she knew this was inane. She and her mother were practically twins, give or take a couple of decades. But this question touched in a place that went deeper than fact, to fear. She didn't know her parents' reactions, after all, to her being sorted into Slytherin. She wasn't even sure they knew. Not unless one of her brothers had told them. Had James or Albus sent their parents any letters? Lily wasn't sure. She had no way of knowing, either.

"Never mind." He shook his head, punctuating his dismissal with a grunt of disgust. "Now that I think about it, Harry Potter never had the balls to do what needed done with the Malfoys anyway…"

This time, Lily's impulse prompted her to jump to her feet, and she knew exactly why.

"Don't talk about my father that way," she growled, almost heedless of the wand pointed right between her eyes. "He's a great man that's keeping us all safe."

"SAFE?!" he snapped. Lily shrank back to the corner, which wasn't nearly far enough away, and the only thing that kept the boy away from her was, ironically, the other.

"Keep it _together_ , Vaisey," the older boy implored through grit teeth, physically forcing Vaisey backward. "You're not going to put your hands on her. You're better than that."

Vaisey looked up at the older boy mutinously. " _You_ did."

"Don't be daft," the boy with the Prefect's badge snarled. ( _Who was ever mad enough to give someone like this a Prefect's badge?_ She wondered silently. _Someone should have a talk with this person.)_ "That was the only way we could get out of there in one piece. Potter was serious. He was going to try and kill the both of us. You realize that, don't you?"

"What if I'm not scared of dying?" Vaisey replied, and the tone of his voice was something much darker than typical-teenage-boy bravado. But then he turned his eyes on Lily and asked, "So you feel safe?"

At the moment, Lily felt very much _un_ safe - but she wasn't about to let him know that.

"Must be nice," Vaisey murmured, a faraway look in his eyes. "All it takes for you to feel safe is for a hero to come along and get rid of the blokes that are dangerous to everyone. But, what if somebody's only dangerous to you? Aurors can't burst inside of someone's home without proof dark magic is being used, can they? There are plenty of ways to hurt a person that don't need dark magic. And let me tell you a secret… 'pretty princess Potter…'"

"Don't call me that." Lily looked away from him, very uncomfortable.

"People get hurt every day in this world," Vaisey said. "And, unless there's dark magic being used… your precious daddy and his Auror Office couldn't give two shits about us."

Lily swallowed hard, looking down at her own feet. "Do you hate my family that much?"

There was a pause.

"I never thought about it much before," Vaisey replied, now in a chillingly serene voice. "But now that I am… yeah, I do. I hate all of you."

Lily spoke no more after this; she didn't know much, but she knew enough to know that there was no reasoning with someone like that. She turned to Temple.

"So what are _you_ doing here?" she asked, much braver than she felt.

"Not complicated," Temple replied. "I just think when you look at history, our society's better off without House Slytherin."

"What, because of Voldemort?" Lily asked innocently.

Temple chuckled. "Be nice if it started and ended there. But see, Voldemort was never the problem in Britain… sure, he went down in the history books as a terrorist and a mass murderer - but how did he ever get that powerful in the first place? It would have been one thing if it was just one man, even a powerful man, against all of Britain. But he had armies at his disposal - you've heard of the Death Eaters, right?"

Lily was a bit insulted by this question. "Of course I know who the Death Eaters were."

Temple raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure some people were just opportunists looking for a taste of power - but the core of his inner circle? His best and… darkest? All of them believed that the best kind of wizard - the only kind of worthy wizard - was a wizard descended from all wizards. Or a pureblood, in other words. And where did that idea even come from in the first place? Salazar Slytherin himself - who, by the way, was Voldemort's ancestor. Bad blood will out, right?"

Lily remained silent. Some of these things she knew already.

"Professor Wenster knew Voldemort from school - back to when he was a student here, going by his real name. Tom-"

"-Marvolo Riddle," Lily interrupted, a bit weary of Temple's condescension.

Temple didn't seem to have an answer for this, so he moved on.

"Here's the thing a lot of people _don't_ know. Tom Riddle didn't really give a damn about blood purity. At least not to the point that the Death Eaters who followed him believed he did," Temple said. "Hell, Riddle was a half-blood himself. He was named after his Muggle father. That's the reason he hated being called that, even going back to when he was a boy. But he saw an opportunity. If he could take advantage of the division that already existed in the Wizarding world - the division his own ancestor started - he could set himself up as a champion of blood purity, and there would be a force ready and willing to put their lives on the line for him. It all goes back to Salazar Slytherin, a thousand years ago."

Temple seemed to have exhausted his capacity and inclination to lecture. So Lily asked him one question: "What's that got to do with me?"

"What the hell kind of stupid question is that?" Vaisey piped in. "You're a Slytherin, aren't you?"

"Your brother is trying to stop us from protecting our own," Temple explained succinctly, more or less ignoring Vaisey's ranting. "That's why you're here. So don't blame us. Blame him. Now… we're almost at the bottom."

"Finally," Vaisey said, looking restless. "Why is this lift ride so bloody long?"

"Illusion magic," Temple said almost dismissively, as if he had a further explanation and couldn't be arsed to give it. But then he set his eyes on Lily.

"I know you're thinking of running as soon as the doors open," Temple replied. "Sorry, but I can't let you do that."

Temple's wand came out. In a sudden terror, Lily tried to back away, but found herself stopped by the wall in the lift…

" _Stupefy!_ "

Red light… then white light…

Then black.

 **Albus**

"Rose, wait!" Albus and Roxanne both tried to catch up with their other cousin, who had stormed on ahead of them, wand already out and with a disturbing look in her eyes. "Are you sure this is even the right hallway?"

"Lion statues, right?" Rose asked, whirling around to turn her power walk into an alarmingly fast backpedal. "I know where we are. Quit trying to slow me down."

And she took off into a run.

"Damn it," Roxanne sighed, breaking into a run as well. "Rose!"

Albus didn't particularly love running, but conceded mentally that this situation probably warranted a quicker pace. The hallway to Wenster's office - at least, Albus hoped to Merlin that was where they would end up after all this distance - seemed impossibly long. The carpet and wall accents had subtly changed color to match the Gryffindor's scarlet-and-gold motif, which gave Albus some home that they were going in the right direction. Although, the more he thought about it, the less he was sure that arriving at their intended destination was a good thing. What, exactly, were they planning on doing once they reached Wenster? Even if Wenster had them both, what case could they make to say that his rank and position did not give him the right? And even if they could make such a case, what were they honestly going to do about it? Albus couldn't see a single scenario where dueling a Hogwarts professor - particularly one with Wenster's experience and demeanor - could possibly end well.

Albus's heart jumped into his throat. Even in this situation, his reason was maybe one or two bits of bad news from giving way. He could only think of his brother - impulsive, a bit belligerent by nature, and fiercely protective of his family and loved ones - would be thinking if news of Lily and Hugo's capture had reached his ears by now. If that was the case… if he had beat them there… it might have been too late already to stop something awful from happening.

A loud string of oaths snapped Albus out of his unpleasant mental track. He looked up to see that Rose had stopped. Roxanne was just now arriving at her side.

"Rose-" she tried to put a hand on her younger cousin's shoulder, but it was quickly swatted away.

" _GEROFF!"_ Rose snarled, staring at what appeared to be the end of this hallway. "It's a dead end. It's a dead end."

She paced with an excess of rage-fueled twitch, pulling at several locks of her auburn hair with her right hand and stretching them to their limit until they almost came free of her scalp entirely. A whimper escaped her, like that of a wounded animal, but whatever further sound was going to come after that, she managed to gulp it back. This, however, didn't make her caged-beast demeanor any less disconcerting. Roxanne finally guided her to a stop, putting hands on her shoulders and telling her (foolishly, Albus thought) not to panic. And it occurred to Albus for a second that perhaps he should have been the one doing that. That said, Roxanne was better at it; she always had been.

Next to Victoire, who was distant, aloof, and frankly a touch self-absorbed at times, Roxanne had been the next oldest Weasley girl born after the war. Between the three core families of the Weasley clan that saw each other most often, she was like the big sister, and had carried that air even when all of them were extremely young. She, Albus thought a bit jealously, had the side he did not - sensitive enough to feel with the people she loved, yet strong enough to be leaned on when the time called for it. Albus looked down at his shoes, loathing himself, wondering why he was so weak. It wasn't that he wanted to volunteer for the unenviable task of being the strong cord that held everything together…

Strong cord…

Two of them, on this wall they had believed to be the end of the hallway. Albus had just noticed them and he wasn't sure if anyone else had. What could two strong cords be…

He looked up.

"It's a lift," he said - loudly for him, he thought, but unsure if he had been loud enough to get everyone's attention. Apparently, it had been enough for Roxanne; she looked up as well. And just in time - out of the darkness, a box descended from the heavens, guided to the ground by the strong cords that had been on the wall. It came to a rest on the floor right in front of them, and opened.

Albus's heart nearly stopped.

She was barely standing. In fact, what she was doing barely qualified as standing. Her feet were on the ground, but her entire weight seemed to be held up by the young man directly behind her. Her flaming red hair was askew on her face, which, to Albus's horror, was sporting a pair of lips that was swollen and misshapen on one side.

"LILY!" Rose screamed. Albus, as if outside his own body, heard his own voice join hers, at least initially. "What the hell did you do to her?!"

"Stay back!" The voice that spoke, whose owner clutched Lily's limpish form tightly whilst extending a wand, belonged to Eamonn Temple. But he and Lily were not alone. Out from behind them stepped…

"Vaisey!" Rose snarled. "Where's my brother?! If he's not alright, I'll-"

"You'll do nothing," Vaisey replied, his voice trembling unsettlingly, producing his own wand and pointing it at Lily's lolling head. "Not unless you're amazingly stupid."

"Put your wand down," Albus muttered, feeling his heartbeat accelerate and start pounding in every inch of his body. Particularly as far as Vaisey had gone, he had forgiven much. But there would be no forgiveness for this. Not now, not ever…

"You all first," Vaisey said, gesturing with his own wand at all three of them. Albus hesitated for a moment, not even remembering having drawn his wand in the first place.

"Step away from-" Roxanne said - rather calmly, Albus thought, given the situation. But Vaisey exploded:

"STOP TESTING ME!" his scream was inhuman and reverberated off the walls and down the hallway. This actually caused Lily to stir and try to struggle - but Temple redoubled his grip. "You will not treat me like a weakling! You won't! I won't let you anymore!"

Albus couldn't help the sense that Vaisey was looking at them but seeing someone else. Even for him, this seemed like too much desperation and hatred. He was raving, snarling. Albus even thought he'd heard a growl escape…

No. That sound rumbled too unnaturally, it was much too… bestial…

"Something's wrong," he muttered.

 _GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR._

"The hell was that?" Vaisey snarled, leveling his wand at Albus. "Don't come any closer!"

 _GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR._

Albus whirled around, somewhat against his better judgment with Vaisey at his back.

His heart skipped a beat.

"Roxanne," he called, trying hard not to succumb to panic.

"What?" Roxanne uttered, still oblivious. She turned around as well - and her eyes widened.

They were staring at white, four-legged, slowly moving… creatures of some sort. There were several, and it took all of two seconds for Albus to realize that the low-pitched growls he had been hearing were somehow coming from these. They looked almost… leonine, but made of some sort of material. Marble, or maybe stone. But they moved realistically enough, and despite the fact that they were smaller than real lions (at least Albus assumed - he'd never had the misfortune of being this close to a real lion), they were baring teeth that would certainly cause real pain if they pierced real skin.

"What _are_ those?" Roxanne asked breathlessly. "How did they get into the castle?"

Albus thought for a moment.

"They were already here," he said. "The statues."

"What?" Roxanne looked at him. "But how-"

She stopped herself mid-sentence, and her look of confusion fell into an expression of dawning comprehension. She slowly raised her wand.

"Son of a bitch," she cursed. "This was a setup."

She took a deep breath, and her nostrils flared.

"Albus, stand back," Roxanne implored. Albus went to do as told. But a gut instinct directed him to also turn around. It was a good thing he did. He saw, beat by beat as if someone had thrown the whole world into slow motion, a white jet of light aimed for Roxanne's back, then a shield trailing auburn place itself in between…

 _KRAKOOOM._

There was a flash of light. Albus felt his feet leave the ground. His back slammed against something. Then a blow to his head. Then everything went fuzzily dark for a moment.

He felt himself pull himself up to his feet, his arms and legs suddenly leaden. Amorphous yells and flashes of light encroached on his muddled senses. It took him a moment to remember where he was. Then another to remember why. Then yet another to remember what was going on.

By this time, the mass of color and light had formed, at the very least, into blurry shapes. Clumps of black and white littered his field of vision, accented by colored sparks. He focused, or attempted to, on one pair on the ground. White over black, with the slightest trace of reddish-brown.

"ROSE!" he roared, breaking into a run as the sight came into focus - the stone lion was crouched atop her prone form, teeth bared. It opened his mouth, rattling the halls with a low, loud roar, and lunged.

But Rose was still aware. With a growl of her own, she turned her body. Her hand produced a wand right as the stone lion's jaws clamped down on her wrist and forearm -

" _Bombarda!"_

There was a puff of white smoke in the vicinity of where the lion's head was. Rose withdrew her hand from the smoke and let out a yell of pain. To make matters worse, the lion toppled, as stiffly as the statue it had once been, and landed on her legs. They must have been quite heavy, because as Albus was arriving, Rose was still trying to extricate herself - and when she did so, it was with a pained hiss. She shuffled backward on her backside awkwardly, seemingly unsure whether her hand or one of her legs was worth favoring more.

"Rose," Albus breathed as she reached her. "Rose."

"I'm _fine_ ," she lied. He could now see, just as she could, the state of her left hand, which was several different colors a hand should not have been. It appeared, although Albus was no Healer, that she had badly burned it. Albus could see the fingers twitching, trying to close - but to no avail.

" _Fine?_ You can't close your hand," Albus said, trying to support her to her feet.

"Lily." Rose's head darted around, her voice a murmur barely audible over a shout of " _Confringo!"_ that sounded like it belonged to Roxanne. "Where's Lily?"

Albus looked around for a trace of his little sister, but could find neither hide nor ginger hair of her.

 _GRRRRRRRRRRR._

Another stone lion crouched in front of them, ready to attack.

 _GRRRRRRRRRR._

Albus whirled around to find that his worst fears were confirmed; they were hemmed in from two sides. Worse, Albus felt around his person - he was unarmed.

"Damn it," Rose swore. "Where's your wand?"

"My wand?" muttered Albus. "Where's _your_ wand?"

"I lost it when that curse went off," Rose replied, talking very fast. "That was yours I was using."

Albus's eyes darted around, scanning the floor. A few feet away from one of the stone lions, almost against its front paw, was a length of yew wood Albus recognized. His heart sank - he didn't have the slightest chance of getting there. But he had to think of _something_. Almost instinctively, his hand went to his wand sheath.

 _This isn't just for decoration, you know,_ his father had told him with a wink at one point that Christmas Day. Squeezing the gold-inlaid sheath, he tried to remember that conversation, how it had gone…

The stone beast in front of him let out a growl of what must have been surprise as Albus's wand _leapt_ from the ground, eluding a swipe of the living statue's claw. With a roar, the other stone lion, seemingly sensing danger, charged. Albus's wand was turning over and over in midair, hurtling toward him quickly but not quickly enough. Looking over his shoulder briefly, he knew he had no time to aim properly. He reached behind himself and felt the wand hit his hand. His fingers closed over it immediately and he brought it forward in one motion: " _Bombarda!"_

He had never used the spell before and the blast that issued forth from his wand had a kickback that almost knocked him over. The stone lion had leapt into the air, defying its own weightiness, but could not dodge and took the jet of golden light flush to the face. An odd-sounding yelp disappeared behind the sound of an explosion, and the stone lion behind a cloud of smoke.

Despite himself, Albus felt his body heave with the heady rush of success. At least, until the stone lion emerged from the smoke, chunk missing from where an eye would have been but still very much animated. It leapt again.

"ROSE!" Albus shouted, shoving his cousin away. She fell to the ground with a yell. A moment later, pressed down by the weight of the beast, so did he. He heard and felt something crack within his torso as the animated statue came down upon Albus's chest, pinning him to the ground. Fortunately, he still had wand and his right arm free… "Lumos!"

If the stone lion was actually using those eyes, it had one good one left, and with a well applied flash of light would be completely blinded. The beast recoiled, roaring loudly and thrashing as if in pain. But then…

"AARGH!"

"ALBUS!"

Something heavy clouted Albus over the side of the head for a second time. He had been fortunate to have had his eyes closed, or he too might have lost one, as the stone lion raised a paw and swiped furiously across his forehead. The pain was awful - like someone had set fire to his entire face. Albus's head lolled back and his eyes looked up.

A snarling, bestial face was above his own, upside-down. Albus's green eyes were looking directly into a stone maw…..

Another awful explosion - this one worse than any before it. Albus shut his eyes, nevertheless perceiving a bright light through them, and covered himself up as best he could. He felt the crushing weight on his chest instantly lift and a cough issue forth from his body. It took several moments of silence before Albus found the courage to open his eyes again, unsure of what would greet him when he did.

One of the stone lions was standing in front of him, but backpedaling as if in fear. Trying to ignore the terrible pain in his ribs, Albus raised his wand…

A jet of bluish light tore out of the smoke and hit the flank of the creature, enveloping it and seemingly eating away it at for a moment until nothing was left but dust.

A bit wildly, Albus raised his wand in front of him.

" _Ventus!"_ he shouted. No light came forth from his wand, as was the case with most spells, but the airspace in front of him warped and distorted, as if a strong wind had kicked up in the area. More crucially, the smog of all the spells being fired off began to dissipate so Albus could sit a bit more clearly. He already saw Rose, but Roxanne came into view a bit into the distance along with Eamonn Temple. She might have been dueling with the latter based on their positions, but both now had turned their head toward the back wall.

Albus felt his heart jolt; James was walking - well, limping - from the lift, his wand aloft. As he approached closer, though, Albus got a better look at his face, and did not like what he saw. James was clearly in rough shape, his lip cut and dribbling blood, a particularly nasty grayish-purple bruise blossoming right underneath his eye.

"James," Roxanne breathed, sprinting over toward him. But he did not so much as acknowledge her, limping on in the direction of Temple, with no apparent focus on anything or anyone else.

"Temple," he called. "Where is my sister?"

Albus's heart jolted again. He looked around. He saw Vaisey, who was on the ground several feet away, jump to his feet. Albus got to his own first - " _Expelliarmus!"_

No sooner than Vaisey had tried to pull out his wand, it left his hand again, clattering to the ground as he flailed his arm in discomfort. Meanwhile, James was still advancing on Temple.

"Where is my sister?" he queried a second time. "I'm not going to ask you again."

Vaisey looked around and let out an oath. Temple looked a bit unnerved.

"I don't know," he said.

"Don't play stupid with me - you had her!" James answered, suddenly raising his voice. "Where is she?!"

Temple shook his head.

"What the hell happened?" Vaisey asked, now sounding a bit panicked.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Temple snapped back. "Those _things_ attacked and I looked up and she was gone."

James looked down at his own shoes for a moment and appeared, oddly, to teeter, almost as if he was about to lose balance.

Then his gait steeled, and in one motion, he brought up his wand, a blank look in his eye.

Roxanne must have seen some very ill intentions in his motion, because she tried to pull him back. "James, hold on. Think about this."

"I already did," James answered, sounding oddly - eerily - calm. Golden light began to swirl around his wand as he planted his feet firmly into the floor. He took a step to the side. Then several, all at once, becoming increasingly unbalanced as his wand extinguished. With a nasty crunch, he collided shoulder-first with the wall, then slid limply to the floor.

"Oh my god - James!" Roxanne went to go aid him.

"I'd stop there, Miss Weasley," a stern, old voice echoed through the hallway. "You've made enough of a mess as is."

Albus's heart stopped. He knew that voice. He whirled around, looking for a sign of the blood red robes, but saw nothing. Nothing except -

A bright light stood on the ground, a stone's throw away. 'Stood' because, as odd as it was, the light itself appeared to have a shape. And that shape appeared to have feet. It was short - a couple of feet tall, if that - and had a rodent-ish look about it in the midst of its glow of silver-white.

But then, almost as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, dispersed into many tiny little specks of light. Albus had barely had time to figure out -

"It's a nonmagical beast - mainly native to the Asian and African continents. _Herpestes_ : more commonly known as the mongoose." Professor Lucan Wenster's voice was calm and didactic as he approached - the same tone he typically employed while lecturing. The darkness of his crimson robes caused him to come into view gradually, almost like an approaching specter. He walked with a weight that seemed to defy the laws of nature. Footsteps on carpet should not have been nearly as loud as they sounded, yet the small noises bounced across the walls and up and down the long hallway as he came into view feet away. "Or, at least, that is the form my personal charm takes after it is cast. The charm itself is known as Patronus and has… well, a fair few different uses that many of you will learn in time."

He finally came to a stop, surveying the scene. Nobody moved.

"That is assuming, of course, that our Heads of House and Headmaster Flitwick allow you to continue learning here at Hogwarts," he added very ominously. "To that end, I can promise nothing."

 **James**

"LILY!"

James sat bolt upright, then squinted. As black as his world had been seemingly been a moment ago, it was now blindingly white. Trying to peer through his overly sensitive pupils, he watched a room come into focus around him. He became aware of the fact that he was seated on a bed, and as his vision became more clear, he realized the bed was one of many. It was rather hard - and irritatingly enough, he could feel a dull ache in his back where he'd been lying prone.

"Please do try to be quiet, Potter," a matronly voice with an aged creak implored him from several feet away in the room. "I do have other patients that need tending to."

James had suffered enough injuries in his three-plus years as a Hogwarts student to recognize the creaky, mothering voice as that of the matron, Madam Pomfrey, which confirmed his initial thought upon seeing the room. He was in the hospital wing.

The odd thing, however, was that, aside from Madam Pomfrey and himself, he appeared to be all alone. She had _just_ said something about other patients, had she not?

"Madam Pomfrey," James called. The old matron shuffled around. James frowned. Nadine Lear, the blonde twentysomething that served as Madam Pomfrey's assistant, probably should have taken over as full-time matron at least a year or two ago. (Where was she? James didn't see a sign of her.) But either Madam Pomfrey just didn't have the heart to leave or Headmaster Flitwick hadn't had the heart to make her. Probably a bit of both. But she was getting on now - nearly ninety, James estimated, although no one had the sheer brass to ask her to her face.

"What is it, Potter?" She seemed a bit snippy, as if James was keeping her from something important.

Fearing for a moment that he might be mad for asking the question, he decided to ask it anyway: "Where are all the other patients?"

Madam Pomfrey frowned.

"Is your eyesight alright, child?" she asked, now sounding genuinely concerned. "There are three other patients in this room."

She pointed with her chin to one of the beds - which, from James's point of view, were clearly empty.

He simply shook his head. Then, with a jolt, he remembered something.

"Have you seen Lily?" he asked. "Lily Potter? My sister?"

Madam Pomfrey frowned again. "Can't say I have. Your brother was in here for a moment, though. Nasty cut on his forehead - from what, he wouldn't say…"

"That'll do, Poppy."

James's body tensed as he heard the low, grave voice of Professor Wenster precede the man into the room from a nearby door.

"Oh. Hello, Lucan," Madam Pomfrey turned to the Professor and addressed him rather casually. "Back so soon?"

Lucan Wenster's face was set in a firm line.

"I thought I requested that you inform me immediately when Potter was awake," he said scoldingly.

"He's only just awoken about two minutes ago." Madam Pomfrey, for what it was worth, seemed for one reason or another completely impervious to the aura of intimidation the acting Head of Gryffindor House put forth - usually to considerable success. "How immediately did you want? Not everyone has aged as… gracefully as you have."

Madam Pomfrey seemed to be trying for a bit of humor. Wenster, though, clearly wasn't in the mood.

"No matter," he said, almost dismissively. "Potter, you are to make yourself decent and come with me immediately. I will be waiting just outside. Forcing me to wait longer will not help your case."

"Just now?" Madam Pomfrey seemed to disapprove. "You realize this boy's just been knocked out for six hours?"

With a rush of panic, James looked around, finding a window and noticing that the sky outside of it was dark. _Six hours?!_ Merlin's beard, it must have been… at least seven or eight o'clock at that rate. What had happened while he had been sleeping?

"He should be good and rested, then," Wenster replied icily. "Potter, five minutes. If you don't come willingly, I've brought a rather large friend who is more than capable of carrying you."

"What's happened, Lucan?" Madam Pomfrey asked as Wenster tried to turn to leave.

"I thought the matron's job was not to ask questions," Wenster answered.

"And normally I don't," Madam Pomfrey contended, "but when no less than five children arrive in my hospital wing within an afternoon all showing signs of having been in duels to the death, you can't blame me for being concerned."

"Duels to the death? Don't exaggerate," Wenster answered. "This was just a bunch of miscreants causing trouble. And I'm here to ensure they're all dealt with appropriately."

"Appropriately?" repeated Madam Pomfrey. "Or just appropriately from your point of view?"

Wenster angled his head.

"You've known me for years, Poppy. Decades," Wenster said, with a tone edging closer to humanity than James had ever heard from him. "When have you ever known me to be dishonest?"

"...Never," Madam Pomfrey answered. "But there were a lot of things I never knew you to be before -"

"Don't finish that sentence." Wenster said, in a foreboding tone that made even Madam Pomfrey go silent. Switching attention to James without looking at him, he said, "I said make yourself decent, not gawk at adult conversations, Potter. You now have three minutes."

Then, with a swish of his cloak, he attempted to leave. But James had not had one question answered. And he was tired of waiting for the answer. Throwing himself out of the bed and leaping to his feet, he shouted at Wenster's back. "Where is my sister?!"

Wenster stopped.

"Your rage won't move me, James Potter. I outgrew being one of you scared, little boys decades ago," he said, his contempt disallowing him from even turning around to look James in the eye. "I know your overly inflated head can't possibly fathom this concept, but there are things - many things - in this world that are much bigger than you or your family. And besides that, I can say with all honesty that I haven't seen the girl all evening. You have two minutes."

There was a brief, mad moment where James thought to reach for his wand - only to realize that it was nowhere to be found.

"I have it," Wenster said. "Or, rather, we do. One minute, forty-five seconds."

He left the room, and James knew he was out of options. Hastily, he rummaged around his hospital bed, found his proper clothes, and yanked the curtain around his bed shut to dress. In this state and with no wand, he stood no chance against Wenster's large friend - whomever that was.

Unless and until a different opportunity presented itself, he was powerless.


	20. Chapter 19

_Author's Note: Happy Friday, ladies and gents!_

 _Sorry for the long wait with this one. Typically, I could use Google Drive to sneak in a page here or there during work when things weren't super frenzied but lately, things have been super frenzied. And on top of that, I wasn't always getting to the library on Saturdays when I did have free time._

 _But all those little problems have been solved now, because as of a couple of weeks ago, I finally have my own laptop again. YAY! I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to negotiate data backup, but this is obviously going to go a long way toward helping me make sure you guys aren't waiting three whole months for chapters anymore._

 _With that said, I seldom ever arrive empty-handed, so enjoy!_

 **Chapter 19: Those Who Carry The Sword**

With a slight shiver, she braced against a chill evening wind. She looked around herself, trying to stay alert for the slightest sign of a threat. But through her trek down several floors of the castle and now across castle grounds, she found no one - threatening or otherwise.

"It's _too quiet_." Kadric Howell had his wand out, looking around himself. "This isn't normal."

"No," she replied. "None of it's normal."

They went a bit farther.

"So, do you think she's out here?" he asked.

"She could be here, back in the castle… anywhere, really," she answered. With a pained sigh, she grit her teeth. "You were right... we should've kept her with _us_."

"No, you were right. It was too dangerous," Howell replied.

"It clearly wasn't safer for her where she was," she answered. "God, how did I let this _happen_ …?"

"You blame yourself too much," Howell said. "Just in general."

"You don't get it," she replied. "I promised him I'd keep her safe. I _promised_." She whirled around toward him, feeling the corners of her eyes burn. "If I don't have my word, then what the hell do I-"

She stopped mid-sentence, though, hearing a noise pierce the night air. Howell heard it too, as his expression changed.

"What was that?" he queried a bit breathlessly, whirling around with his lit wand aloft.

As if to answer his question, an ear-splitting, spine-tingling shriek rang across the grounds. It was almost bloodcurdling, and certainly made the fine red hairs on the back of her neck stand up. (And the wind, which seemed to be extra cold and extra violent tonight, wasn't helping.) It rang again, this time more desperately, and accompanied by a loud thump.

"Whatever it is, it doesn't sound safe," Howell commented through grit teeth, his face looking paler than usual in his wand's light (and that was saying quite a bit). With a badly disguised gulp, he added, "At all."

Brynne bit her lip. She hadn't wanted to bring Howell out here. That hadn't been her first choice. It was nothing against him, but she would have preferred someone who was a bit more difficult to rattle. That was not to say that Kadric Howell was a coward, because he wasn't. But this was a special brand of scary, and it was going to take a special type of bravery to face it head-on - the type of bravery that was typically forged in one that had seen worse. Much worse.

But Rowan was unavailable. Not because he was unwilling; but when they had crossed the threshold of the Come and Go Room together, she found herself in the seventh floor hallway without him. She called for him, but he could not or would not answer. Somehow, and at some point, he had disappeared.

The scream rang again.

"We have to go," Kadric Howell said, his voice trembling.

"Back to the castle?" Brynne inquired.

"No," Howell's voice replied, this time firmer but not yet steady. "Whoever it is, is in trouble. We have to go find them."

Howell, she reminded herself, was quite brave enough. Or at least, in the moment, he was trying his best to be, which would do. It would have to.

"Alright," Brynne agreed. "Stay behind me. I can cast a Shield Charm if anything comes at us-"

"No, you can't," Howell interrupted, this time very firmly. "You can't and you know it. You're exhausted."

"I'm -" Brynne started to yell at him, but stopped. She swallowed the rest of the sentence, and her pride, with considerable difficulty. "Fine," she conceded after a long moment. "You take the lead."

So he did, freezing for a moment when they both heard another scream, but pressing on through a thicket of trees.

"Don't you know any other spells besides the Shield Charm?" Howell asked as Brynne kept pace behind him. "I've been meaning to ask you."

Brynne frowned. "Of course I know other spells. You know I know - we sit all of the same classes. What kind of question is that?"

"Sorry, that came out wrong," Howell apologized. "I meant is - why don't you _use_ anything else? Anytime we've been in a fight, I've never seen you use -"

"Dark magic?" Brynne interrupted.

"That's not what I meant," Howell muttered, flustered. "Like, I've never seen you _attack_ an enemy."

As far as Brynne (and her Defence text) was concerned, _any_ magic used for the main purposes of attacking another person could be considered Dark magic. But that was a semantic argument for which she didn't have the energy at the moment - so she decided to come at the question a different way. "I don't have that many enemies."

"We've got tons of enemies," Howell said. "Or am I the only one that notices that? The Progenies and Godric's Guard both hate us and probably don't even realize it. And God knows what Malcolm's up to, no one's heard much of anything from him or his lot in months…"

"Are the Progenies and Godric's Guard our enemies?" asked Brynne. "Or just misguided?"

"Could be both," Howell reasoned. "I mean, they're misguided and that's why they're our enemies. Or they're enough like enemies that we should probably be treating them as such until they prove something different."

"Eventually, if you keep treating somebody like an enemy, that's exactly what they turn into," Brynne said. "That's literally how we ended up here."

"Well, maybe…" Howell whirled around. Brynne stopped. "Maybe standing between two groups of people that want to rip each other to pieces isn't doing anything but getting us ripped to pieces first. I mean… did you take _one_ look at her face? Huh?"

Brynne was confused by this question.

"I've seen it a hundred times, Kadric," she answered. "And I don't see a difference."

"You weren't looking hard enough, then," Howell answered, his nostrils flaring angrily. Then he turned away from her for a moment. His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. Then, calmly, and without looking at Brynne, he said, "...She's going to leave after this. And I think you know that. And you need to let her."

Brynne frowned. "Why wouldn't I? I'm not heartless."

"I know you aren't," Howell said. "I just think you - lots of people with big dreams, really… I guess what I'm saying is…"

"Go on," Brynne tried to coax him.

"Sometimes people that chase big dreams… tend to forget about the small people," Howell said quickly, clearly trying to get the entire thing out before he lost his nerve. "And I just hope you're not-"

The scream came again.

"We have to go," Brynne insisted.

"Right," agreed Howell, and they set off through the trees.

When they emerged they realized that they had come, through some circuitous route or another, around the rim of the Forbidden Forest, and were now staring upward at the looming castle. The moon was well hidden behind clouds, yet the castle's silver-white glow was not abated in the least. Though tonight, it looked less inviting and more menacing. Maybe that was just because of everything inside.

"HAGRID!"

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

The scream was close enough to be intelligible now, coming from a large hut Brynne recognized as belonging to the Hogwarts gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures Professor. She and Howell sprinted to the hut, rounding it to find the door.

They found a door, and leaning weakly against it a small girl with disheveled ginger hair. She pounded the massive wooden door again, slumping lower, her robe-clothed form racking with sobs. Brynne and Howell had both identified her in an instant - they exchanged a wordless look. Brynne stepped forward tentatively, and then kept going after Howell's lack of motion confirmed that he was utterly lost in this situation and she would have to handle it on her own.

Reaching a hand toward the crying girl, she grasped her shoulder and called her in a quiet voice: "Lily."

The reaction was quick and violent; Lily swung around immediately and shoved Brynne hard, so hard that Brynne teetered and almost fell. Lily was looking straight at Brynne, the whites of her brown eyes red with crying and her face streaked with lines of wetness. She had not only been weeping, but had been weeping tears in sets of two and four. People jokingly called it 'the ugly cry', but this was no joke; Lily was clearly traumatized. To Brynne's great horror, the girl's lip was swollen, having clearly taken a blow of some sort, and under her streaming eyes was an indigo-ish bruise.

"Oh, my God…" Brynne heard her own voice catch. She was supposed to be the one keeping composure when all hell was breaking loose around them, but this…. This was too much.

Really, all of it was…

"I'm so sorry," she heard herself whimper as she threw her arms around the younger girl and allowed her to weep into her shoulder. And, try as she might to keep her own tears from escaping, a few did. "I'm so, so sorry…"

It took a while for Lily to calm down. And when she did, it didn't seem like her emotions had left her as much as her energy to express them.

It was at this point, with Brynne and Lily seated at the door to Hagrid's hut, that Kadric Howell asked a dumb question.

"So… are you alright? What happened?"

"Kadric, _NO_ ," Brynne snapped, standing up.

But from somewhere below her, Lily's voice whispered, "...It's okay. No one else will believe me anyway."

This struck Brynne as _especially_ ominous, and she sat down. "What…" she stumbled on her words, suddenly afraid to finish asking the question. "...What did they do to you?"

"It was…" Lily stopped.

Brynne shook her head. "Never mind. You don't have to…"

But Lily interrupted her again. "It was that Prefect Gryffindor's got…"

Howell's nostrils flared. "Temple. That _bastard_."

"He, a girl, and another boy…" Lily said. "They came down to the Dungeon and demanded to be let in. Boyd, the head boy, was there. He said no. Then Temple… then Temple said he was under orders from Professor Wenster to take in a Slytherin student and if we didn't open the door, Wenster would come back himself with Hogsmeade's Hit Wizards…"

This was an empty threat, Brynne knew. From what she'd heard of Hogsmeade, its on-duty force of Hit Wizards was half a dozen, none of whom would be apt or even permitted to leave their post and make the trek up to the castle, let alone use any sort of force on an underage student, without orders from a direct superior. And it was overkill; the threat of Wenster himself would have been enough to change minds. The majority of House Slytherin hated him but were also _terrified_ of him for some reason Brynne couldn't quite figure out. (Well, besides the fact that he was very powerful and held such naked animosity against House Slytherin. But there was something else there… something Brynne must not have known about.) In any case, Lily didn't have to spell it out to Brynne for her to know the result.

"So Boyd let them in," Brynne said.

Lily swallowed hard and nodded. "I was minding my business, sitting at a table with Karyn and reading _Which Broomstick_ … Mum had almost every issue lying around the house, so it reminded me of home…"

Brynne's face fell into a sad frown. Up until now, Lily had been putting on a brave face for everyone, but the truth was that she had been extremely homesick. It was to be expected, Brynne thought, for a first year brought up in such a loving home and away from it from the first time. And not being able to see her brothers or any of her cousins in other houses much, if at all, couldn't have been helpful.

 _This is exactly why you don't do things like this,_ Brynne thought, inwardly cursing the Headmaster's decision-making.

"Next thing I know they've all surrounded my table saying I needed to come with them. Then a boy with the Progenies came over. I can't remember his name, but he had glasses…"

"That's Nott," Howell muttered, exchanging a glance with Brynne.

"He asked what was going on and why they were bothering me," Lily said. "Vaisey told him to… well, 'mind his business.'"

"I'd bet there were a few other colorful words in there?" Howell asked.

Lily nodded grimly. "That's when…"

She trailed off and then put a hand to her mouth.

"Oh, God, I hope he's alright," she whimpered.

"What did they do to him?" Brynne asked.

"Temple Stunned him," replied Lily. "He didn't even have his wand out."

"Cheap shot," Howell commented. "Typical."

"And then Vaisey…" Lily shook her head. "He went over to him, and he just…"

She shook her head again.

"He stomped on his face... as hard as he could," she gulped. Brynne heard Howell mutter an oath. "I've never seen anybody do something so awful. And then he said something mad. 'That's for you and your rubbish grandfather,' or something. The girl grabbed me. I couldn't even move. She's even bigger than the girl from your room, Brynne…"

"That's… ugh. Can't remember her name, either, but I know who you're talking about," Howell answered, frowning. The girl from Brynne's room, of course, was Marsha Flint, who had bothered Lily once before. Just once - before Brynne let her know in no uncertain terms that Lily was under her protection. Marsha, naturally, remembered what had happened the last time she had crossed Brynne, and that was all it took to set her straight. All that said, the girl that had gotten hold of Lily was larger still. She was a sixth year and nearly as big as Temple, who cut an imposing figure himself.

"Vaisey had his wand out and wanted to curse Nott again but the girl told him to stop. He didn't listen at first," Lily explained. "Not until Temple told him to. But then he just jinxed Karyn. It was a Leg-Locker Curse. She tried to stand up and fell over. Hit her head on the table. Vaisey said it was so she couldn't follow us…"

"But I bet he just did it for a laugh," Howell said, disgusted. "Sick bastard."

"They took me up to Professor Wenster's office," Lily explained. "Said he'd asked for me. But the one girl… they had a row all of a sudden, she said it was too much. There was a lot of shouting and swearing - Vaisey, mostly - and then she stormed off."

Brynne swallowed hard. "Did they hurt you?" she asked.

"Not too badly," Lily said, palming her head. "Not like they did Hugo, he must have really tried to fight back…"

She looked at the ground for a long while, shaking her head repeatedly, and letting a few sobs escape.

"I just wish I wasn't so weak," she said.

"Don't do that to yourself," Brynne replied.

"I don't like that people got hurt…" Lily said. "Trying to protect me. James and Al, too… it shouldn't be like that."

"Everyone's older than you," Howell said, his tone indicating that he was hoping to sound comforting and unsure if he did. "What did you expect -"

" _I'm a Potter!"_ she let loose a shout that echoed off into the distance, her head snapping up, and her tear-blotched eyes locked in a stare at Howell that was so fierce and blazing that the older boy backed up a step. Then, looking at her hands, she murmured, "I should at least be able to take care of myself."

Brynne put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a half-embrace that Lily neither returned nor resisted.

"This won't stand," Brynne said firmly. "You hear me?"

Howell frowned. Not meeting Brynne's eye, he advised with more than a hint of bitterness, "Don't go making more promises you can't keep."

Brynne jumped to her feet and stared a hole through Howell. "You don't believe me? I'll make an Unbreakable Vow, then. Take out your wand."

This took Howell off guard, so much so that his jaw dropped and he audibly stammered. "Y-you can't be serious. You're not. You _do_ know what happens if -"

" _Yes, I bloody well know!"_ Brynne snapped fiercely, feeling wetness in her eyes but blinking it back. "But how in the _hell_ can I protect hundreds of Hogwarts students if I can't even protect one, let alone ten?"

Howell shook his head. "That's not your job."

"It will be. One day," she said quietly, letting out another sigh. Another of her plans gone to pot. _He_ was supposed to be the first person to know this - but once again, circumstance was making a shambles of things. "Because, one day, I'm going to be in charge here. I'm going to be Headmistress. And people that use students as a means for power… people like Wenster and Malcolm… won't have any place here."

Howell was astonished into silence for a second. When he swallowed and found his voice, he said, "Well… as for an Unbreakable Vow, you're out of luck. That spell's a bit over my head."

"Never mind," Brynne sighed heavily through her nose. "If I can't bring this off, I'm likely to die trying anyway…"

They sat and stood there in silence for a moment. Howell and Lily jumped a bit at an unfamiliar, keening cry. But Brynne was calm, watching something that looked a bit like a shooting star flying toward the castle.

"Probably just something from the forest," she said.

The next sound was quite blaring and made all three of them jump. A voice, female but commanding, echoed throughout the castle ground. "ATTENTION, HOGWARTS STUDENTS."

There was a pause.

"THIS IS YOUR ACTING HEADMISTRESS, PROFESSOR GLADSTONE."

"Wait, _what?"_ Howell uttered. "Acting Headmistress? What in Merlin's…"

"Has Flitwick been away this whole time?" queried Brynne.

"It would explain a lot," remarked Howell.

But Lily dissented. "No, I saw him at breakfast this morning."

"ALL STUDENTS, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR COMMON ROOMS IMMEDIATELY."

Brynne frowned.

"Something's happened."

 **James**

It felt like this lift had been going forever. James knew that the Headmaster's office was in a high tower and, in fact, had been here once or twice before. Neither time did he remember the lift taking this long. He half thought Professor Wenster, who was standing on the other side and hadn't talked in a good while, was slowing things down purposely, just to torment him.

"You haven't looked me in the eye this whole time, Potter," Wenster commented, as if on cue. James instantly preferred the silent treatment. "Are you that ashamed?"

It was all James could do not to reach up and deck the old codger in the jaw. Of course, Wenster probably knew that. That was why he had James's hands tied behind his back.

"No," James admitted. "I just don't like you very much, is all."

This was putting it mildly. James wasn't sure he'd hated anyone more. All of this… _all of it…_ was his fault.

 _Well, his and Beal's_ , James reasoned to himself. _But Beal knew how this would play out with Wenster here. That's why he knew what he did would work._

"You're an insolent one," Wenster said. "Thought your parents would've taught you better manners than that."

"Does it matter?" James answered bitterly. "You've already decided what you're going to have done to me. Kissing up isn't going to help."

"No," confirmed Wenster. "That it won't. We're not likely to speak again after this - so, tell me, why do you hate me so much? I'm curious."

James's face contorted with rage and loathing. "You've made life very difficult for people I love and care about," he said. "It's that simple."

"Only for the greater good," Wenster replied. "Maybe, one day, you'll understand-"

"I understand the greater good doesn't sacrifice people so easily," James interrupted, finally looking up and fixing a glare on Wenster. "And if it does, maybe it's not good enough."

"And your father taught you that, I'd bet," Wenster said. "He was naive, too. That's why most of Britain didn't want him as Head Auror."

"And he's been there for thirteen years now," James answered.

Wenster raised both eyebrows.

"For all your arrogance and bravado," he croaked at last, "you've still lost. There's nothing you can say or do to cover that. It's a shame, too. You could have taken me up on my offer. You've got talent. No matter. As I said, for the greater good…"

The lift door slid open to reveal the shelves and effects of Headmaster Flitwick's personal office - a place that would have looked quite warm and inviting, if not for one minor snag. Typically, for a student to be summoned to Flitwick's office required a convention of the Disciplinary Panel or something else similarly ominous. It was a nice place to look at, but seldom ever a fun place to be.

And this evening, it was crowded; James counted that he and Wenster would make eight at the very least.

"You're late, Professor," a voice called from across the room. James recognized it as belonging to Professor Malcolm. Somewhat oddly, the normal urge James got to punch the man's face whenever he opened his mouth never appeared. Perhaps, James thought grimly, he had spent all his hate for the day...

"Yes, yes, I know we agreed upon seven," Wenster muttered impatiently. "My charge was uncooperative."

"I was under the impression that your 'charge' was unconscious." Another man spoke up. Professor Ithamar Ambrose, for a moment, looked much younger than his thirty-and-a-few years as he removed his spectacles from his face to at least go through the motion of wiping them off.

"Unconscious, uncooperative… same difference," replied Wenster gruffly. "Also, Headmaster, your lift may need to be looked at."

"You could do with a bit of patience, Lucan," Headmaster Flitwick, though Wenster was something around ninety years old, managed to address the wizened Transfiguration master like a doting father would a son. Lips twitched behind a wispy, white beard as the Headmaster added, "We're no longer at an age where we can go on with too much stress."

A cough issued forth from one of the adult wizards. Standing next to Malcolm, Professor Gladstone had her mouth in her fist. James, though, could have sworn he saw upturned lips behind that fist. And maybe Malcolm saw something as well, because he was giving her an odd look. Maybe, though, James rationalized, it was a trick of the light.

Speaking of tricks of the light, there seemed to be something shining on the fist hiding Gladstone's mouth. James stared at it for a moment and followed the motions of the Professor's hand to realize that the shiny object was a rare stone of sorts - a rare stone that must have been set into a ring.

Even Malcolm and Gladstone, after a while, had dispensed with the secrecy of their relationship. (Such a thing was rather hard to hide, after all, after a good chunk of Hogwarts had seen them snogging at last year's Valentine's Day social.) Though no details were shared - which, James thought, was likely for the better - everyone certainly knew. Rumors had gone around the school that Malcolm had proposed to Gladstone in secret, or was going to get around to it at some point soon. Apparently 'soon' had already taken place, judging by the ring on Gladstone's finger - a ring James had never seen her wearing in her Charms class.

"Well, now that you're done having a laugh at my expense…" Wenster uttered disdainfully.

"Laughter can be had from you at… what's the word… a bargain?" A man had been standing in the distance, staring out of the tall windows behind Professor Flitwick's desk. James hadn't noticed him - probably because the violet robes he wore with his turban. Both were spangled with stars that actually seemed to twinkle and glow as he moved, and had seemed to blend right into the background. He had brownish-tan skin, and an impressively thick mustache over the beginnings of a salt-and-pepper beard. Thin, perfectly round glasses sat at the bridge of his nose, shielding dark eyes that nevertheless seemed to shine.

"Are you calling me a joke, Professor 'Hail-im'?" Wenster asked, mispronouncing the man's name. "What, exactly, are you doing here?"

"It's 'Hah- _leem_ ', Professor, as I've reminded you before," the brown-skinned Professor said, with a tone that suggested that this was neither the first nor the second time that he'd had to make this correction with Wenster in particular. "And I am here observing."

"Observing what, might I ask?" Professor Wenster's attitude toward Professor Halim (who incidentally taught Ancient Runes and with whom James got on better than most teachers) was immediately and nakedly confrontational. James didn't know exactly why, but it seemed - at least from where Wenster was standing - that an extra party in the room represented a threat to whatever he was or had been planning.

"I can answer that," Flitwick chimed in in his small squeak. "You'll know by now, of course, that Clint and Meridia," he nodded toward Professors Malcolm and Gladstone, "are engaged to be married."

James caught a glimpse of the other three House Heads' faces. Gladstone beamed; Malcolm allowed himself a smile, looking surprisingly human.

Ambrose forced a smile that managed to look genuine after a second; before that, he'd looked like a man that had taken a swift boot to the bollocks and was trying very hard not to show the agony on his face.

"No, I did _not_ know that, in fact." James heard the unspoken part of Wenster's sentence - _and I couldn't care less._ "I suppose congratulations are in order."

"Well, to make a long story short," Flitwick said, "Initially they decided upon a summer date but have more recently decided upon an elopement to the Isle of Man over the winter holidays. And then, not long after that, some time to set up their home before they honeymooned in… where was it?"

"Greece," Malcolm finally intimated after a very badly concealed elbow nudge from his fiancee.

"Mykonos?" Professor Halim chimed in with a query.

"...Yes, in fact." Malcolm answered, giving Halim a suspicious look - probably, James surmised, trying to figure out how the hell the Ancient Runes master had managed to guess the specific location so exactly.

Halim nodded. "Nice place. Went there once as a young man with the intent of studying the Ptolemaic dynasty."

"Mykonos isn't exactly a hotbed for wizarding history from what I've heard," Malcolm said, both he and Gladstone (who was smiling wryly) clearly picking up on something James wasn't.

"Well, no, but… best laid plans and all that." Halim punctuated his statement with a pause and a knowing chuckle. "Like I said, I was a young man…"

"I still fail to understand what these nuptials have to do with your being in this meeting tonight," Wenster stated stiffly.

"As I said," Halim replied patiently, "I'm observing."

Flitwick piggybacked. "The timeline our happily betrothed friends have given me puts their return to Hogwarts after the winter holidays a couple of weeks into January. I've arranged for coverage for their classes for that time period for Professor Malcolm's Defence classes. As for Professor Gladstone's Charms periods… well, I thought I'd step in and do those myself."

"I appreciate it, Headmaster," Gladstone chimed in.

"Oh, no, the pleasure's all mine, Meridia. Believe me," Flitwick answered. "It's been a few years since I've gotten to teach young wizards instead of simply handling all of the administrative tedium. I'm looking forward to it. That said… should any urgent matters pop up in that span of time, we'll need someone else to take on the role of Acting Head of House for Ravenclaw. And that is where Professor Halim has graciously volunteered himself for the responsibility."

"In other words," Halim expounded further, "on the off chance another one of these unpleasant Disciplinary Panel meetings has to take place before Professor Gladstone returns, the Headmaster thought it prudent for me to gain some firsthand experience in how they work. I apologize if that inconveniences you at all, but…"

"No, no inconvenience," Wenster interrupted stiffly, making it transparently obvious that Halim's presence _was,_ in fact, an inconvenience. "Shouldn't keep us from going about business as usual." This, along with the half-second glance he shot Halim at the end, constituted a badly disguised threat - _You had better not keep us from going about business as usual._

"You're eager, aren't you?" Professor Halim queried, making a bristling sound as he stroked his stubble with his finger and thumb. "Can't say I like that."

Wenster strode away from James and took his place with the other three House heads.

"Well, here in this country, we've got an adage many of us are taught as young children. If you've nothing nice to say, best to say nothing."

"Lucan - one last detail…" Flitwick said, but Ambrose talked across him.

"Professor Wenster, I believe Professor Halim is well aware of his origins and doesn't need reminding."

"Ithamar," Flitwick said, and his paternal air was gone. "Do not interrupt me. Lucan, as I was about to say…regretfully, you do not have the authority to sit this panel."

"The authority?" Wenster asked, sounding more confused than affronted. "Have I missed something? You named me Acting Head of Gryffindor House…"

"A title that carries weight only when and for as long as the appointed Head of House is away from Hogwarts or otherwise unavailable to carry out the responsibilities of his office," a voice sounded from somewhere behind James. James's heart and stomach did an odd lurch in his chest. He dared not look back, lest he find out that the voice he was hearing belonged to no one and was only in his head. "If the appointed is again present and available…"

A tall man took three strides past James without looking at him.

"The title and all of its attendant powers and responsibilities return to him," Professor Neville Longbottom finished. "Or her. Evening, Meridia."

Gladstone was speechless; clearly neither she nor anyone else in the room aside from the headmaster knew that Neville was here this evening.

"Professor Longbottom." Despite the seriousness of the situation, James almost had to fight down a laugh; he had never seen a person's face cycle through that many colors in such a short amount of time as he watched Wenster go white, then blue, then pink, then orange, then red, and then back to pink in the ensuing silence. "What a pleasant surprise. What brings you here?"

"Happened to be in the area," Neville said casually. "Thought I'd come see whether the school was still standing. Not that I didn't trust you, of course…"

"You're a _ways_ from London, Professor Longbottom," Wenster replied in a booming drawl. "'Happened to be in the area'? Or were you perhaps called?"

"I haven't had any contact with anyone in this room since August," Neville answered. "And until today, I hadn't spoken to any Hogwarts students since we broke for the summer last June. Now… with all due respect, if we're to get started, I believe that's my spot."

James could practically see smoke leaving Wenster's nostrils as he sighed heavily through them, and then stepped aside to allow Neville past. Neville took his place besides the other three House heads and turned to face James and the other boys. He'd grown a beard in his time away, and had perhaps lost a bit of weight.

James finally glanced at the other students in the room.

Scorpius was there, his face gray except for his lip, which had a rusted dribble of dried blood. He hadn't made as much as a sound since James walked in the room, and looked like something undead standing there, except for his eyes, which were locked in a disturbingly inscrutable stare at Neville.

Behind him a ways were Temple and Vaisey who, to James's great shock, had their hands bound just like James and Scorpius did.

"This is an unusual thing you're doing, recommending four students from your own House for expulsion from Hogwarts," Headmaster Flitwick said. "I've been teaching for well over a half century and can't say that I've ever seen it."

"It's an unusual situation," Wenster replied. "Two of these boys abused the trust and license I gave them as Acting Head of Gryffindor House, and the other two actively tried to murder the first two."

"Murder? I didn't try to _murder_ anyone," Scorpius suddenly piped in.

"The accused will speak only when spoken to," Wenster said dismissively.

"Murder?" Ambrose piped in. "That is a very serious accusation, Professor Wenster. Where is your proof?"

"Mr. Vaisey and Mr. Temple abducted Miss Potter from the Slytherin common room," replied Wenster. "It is therefore understandable, though not excusable, that _Mr._ Potter, in an attempt to retrieve his sister, stormed up to my office with violent intentions for whomever he happened to find there."

"Where is Miss Potter now?" questioned Ambrose.

"That, I'm not sure about," Wenster replied. "Much less with the Veil up again -"

"The only option available after things had escalated beyond a certain point this afternoon," the headmaster interrupted.

Neville sighed.

"You didn't tell me that part," he said to Flitwick. The magic that made students from other Houses invisible to each other within the castle grounds did not apply to professors, so none of them would have been able to tell at a glance if it had been activated. It was powerful, ancient magic that, to this point, had only been utilized once in recent memory, which was at the peak of _Gladius Leo'_ s activity more than a decade prior. Before then, it had been used so seldom (at least according to what Rowan Lester had read and relayed to them) that some Headmasters of Hogwarts went through their entire tenures unaware of its existence.

Yet Flitwick had used the magic barrier twice in a calendar year - and this second time was _after_ the first had made him the target of mass outcry from the Wizarding community. James had heard through the grapevine that summer that there was a point where it looked like the Headmaster's job might be in jeopardy.

"The parents will be furious," Neville said.

"I did what was necessary," Flitwick answered, unapologetically. "I don't doubt there well might have been a murder if things had gone much longer."

"That's a fair tie-in to the next point I was about to make," Wenster commented. "Mr. Potter seems to have been in the business of attempting to undermine my attempts to regain control of the situation peacefully."

"Peacefully, you said?" Ambrose queried. "I was under the impression that this… 'Godric's Guard' organization… was started under your orders. Particularly after you used them some weeks ago to threaten me with arrest."

"I was trying to find out the truth," Wenster replied.

"From where I was sitting, you were trying to intimidate everyone," Ambrose rebutted.

"You take things too personally, Ithamar," Wenster said, looking away from him. "You always have. It's almost forgivable as a child, but at your age…"

"You're damn right it's personal!" Ambrose suddenly exclaimed, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. Known as soft-spoken, almost mouselike, the Potions master and Head of Slytherin never raised his voice like that - nor did he swear, for that matter. "Or did you conveniently forget that Tellius Nott and Karyn Harper were sent to the Hospital Wing with injuries? I'm honor-bound to protect the students of House Slytherin every bit as much as you are to protect House Gryffindor."

"And yet you send several of your students to interfere with Godric's Guard performing a task _I_ had assigned them," Wenster replied.

Ambrose raised his eyebrow. "I did not, in fact."

"Then who are the Progenies?" asked Wenster.

"A student-led initiative," Ambrose answered simply. "My Slytherins felt it necessary to band together to protect themselves because of _your_ failure to control Godric's Guard. I had nothing to do with the creation of that group - or with any of its activities."

"A conveniently easy out," replied Wenster. "Even if that's true, the responsibility still lies with you as Head of Slytherin House to control them."

"The same goes for you with House Gryffindor," countered Ambrose, not willing to back down.

"Gryffindors take no issue with stamping out the rogue elements within their own House," Wenster said, sweeping his hand to indicate James and the other three boys he had brought before the panel. "Britain's history would look much different if the same could be said for Slytherin House."

"Professor Wenster, Professor Ambrose - that's enough," Neville finally jumped in. "These four young men are the ones on trial here, not either of you."

"Perhaps we're doing this wrong, then," Ambrose said. "At what point do we find out who bears responsibility for three of _my_ students being injured?"

"I already told you," Wenster replied, sounding somewhat irritated. "Mr. Vaisey and Mr. Temple. Also, ultimately, Mr. Potter."

"Both members of Godric's Guard, correct?" Ambrose asked. "I'm not always good with names but I _do_ remember faces."

"They acted outside the realm of freedom I allowed them," Wenster answered. "I trusted them to help me bring order and they abused that trust."

"We only did what you told us to do!" Vaisey suddenly exclaimed.

"And what's worse," Wenster went on without missing a beat, not even changing tone to acknowledge Vaisey's outburst. "What's worse… is they claimed my authority to do so."

"So you admit that you had at least something to do with several Gryffindor students showing up at Slytherin's dungeon demanding my students give up Miss Potter - and the altercation that ensued?" Ambrose queried pointedly.

"Yes to the first, no to the second. I simply asked them to retrieve Miss Potter," replied Gryffindor's once-Acting Head of House. "I gave them permission to use force _only_ in the event that they would need to defend themselves."

"Tellius Nott rushed me," Vaisey piped in.

"That's interesting, Mr. Vaisey," Ambrose replied. "I spoke to Mr. Nott not an hour ago, and he tells me a different story."

"Of course he does," Vaisey answered sourly. "He's lying. Thought you of all people would know that. That's what you all do, right?"

" _Excuse me_?" Ambrose uttered, sounding affronted.

"You're treading dangerous territory, Mr. Vaisey," Flitwick said. "It might behoove you to show a bit more respect than that."

"Respect to the man that allowed two of his students to beat me bloody and get away scot-free and now wants to act all indignant when a couple of Slytherins come up injured?" Vaisey spat. "No, thanks."

Ambrose's fists clenched for a moment.

"I won't deny that what Garrick Claudius and Shelby Fletcher-Hawes did to you last year was reprehensible, Mr. Vaisey," Ambrose said. "I _tried_ to balance justice for you and mercy for them with my decision-making. But your response to that… Karyn Harper is a first year. An _eleven-year-old girl_. And Mr. Nott would never start a fight unless he had a very good reason. I know that much about him. He's not violent by nature. But it seems that you are - which begs the question of why..."

He rounded on Wenster again.

"...someone with such obvious tendencies would be put into such a situation by a competent professor," Ambrose finished, eyeing Wenster suspiciously.

"Are you suggesting that I'm incompetent?" Wenster asked, as if challenging Ambrose to say exactly that. But Ambrose did not take the bait.

"No, I'm suggesting the exact opposite," he answered. "Which is far worse."

"I'm certainly not incompetent," Wenster muttered. Raising his eyebrows then, he said, "Though I do concede to being fallible like any other human being."

"Is that so?" Ambrose asked, with an almost jovial sarcasm that James hadn't heard from him before. "First I've heard of it. In about twenty years, mind."

"Do not mock me, Ithamar," Wenster said. "This situation is enough of a farce without you taking this as an opportunity to nurse your grudge against me."

"If I may interject," Professor Halim chimed in, "we have… what is the saying? 'Bigger fish to fry', here, do we not? I, for one, have details of a lesson plan to finish. So if we can get to the important portion of these proceedings…"

"Thank you for keeping us on track, Professor ' _Hail-im'_." James frowned. He was sure Wenster was doing that on purpose now - and judging by Halim's face, Halim was as well. "We shall proceed, once our esteemed colleague kindly remembers that he is no longer twelve years old-"

"No."

Ithamar Ambrose's voice was quiet but sharp, and drew attention in a way a snarl or yell would not have done.

"You're absolutely right, Lucan," Ambrose said. Malcolm and Gladstone exchanged a glance. Apparently, Ambrose calling Professor Wenster by his first name was extremely out of the ordinary. "I am not your twelve-year-old student anymore. I am a Professor and Head of House Slytherin, and you will address and respect me as such, or I will remove myself from this panel."

This brought a moment of silence in the room. Gladstone's jaw was hanging open a bit. She seemed to notice after about a second and closed it. Malcolm was silent, his blue eyes darting behind his glasses between the other people in the headmaster's office - yet even he looked more than a bit tense.

Headmaster Flitwick was the first to speak. He took a deep breath, and James thought it sounded a bit labored. Maybe, James thought, Flitwick was simply getting tired. He was quite, _quite_ old, after all... "You do remember, Professor Ambrose, that the rules state that all four-"

"I'm well aware of how the panel works, Headmaster," Ambrose answered calmly, not looking at Flitwick, and instead, staring a hole straight through Wenster. "Our 'esteemed colleague' seems to have forgotten."

"You haven't changed a bit," Wenster spat bitterly. "Exactly why I disagreed with your appointment as Head of House at - what was it, twenty-five?"

"There weren't any other options," Ambrose said venomously. "Mostly owing to you having chased every other Slytherin away from Hogwarts."

"For God's sake!" Flitwick finally exclaimed. When James looked at him, he was clutching his chest. "This is a Disciplinary Panel, not a… survey on Hogwarts politics! If we're to go on with this, we need to…"

He trailed off.

Professor Gladstone's face changed. She'd sensed something was wrong.

"We need to…" Flitwick trailed off again.

Gladstone crossed the room. "Professor?"

Flitwick took a deep breath - a breath that rattled alarmingly.

"Get…" he murmured, barely audible. "Get… Pop…"

Then he teetered, falling forward and from the desk upon which he had been standing.

"Headmaster!" Gladstone shouted.

"Shit!" Malcolm snarled with an uncharacteristic panic, making a beeline for Flitwick's falling body and pulling out his wand. " _Aresto Momentum!"_

Flitwick's lifeless form stopped eerily in midair. Malcolm caught hold of him and put him back onto the desk, where he lay on his back.

Suddenly, Professor Halim sprang into motion. "Excuse me," he muttered, nonetheless forcing himself between Gladstone and Malcolm, causing the latter to stagger backward in surprise and nearly trip on one of the two stairs that elevated Flitwick's desk above the rest of the office. It was unusually awkward for Malcolm and might have been humorous if not for the apparently dire situation. Meanwhile, Halim had a free path to the desk and to Flitwick, and lay his head on the Headmaster's tiny chest for a moment. Before anyone could ask the obvious question, he pulled out his wand and put the end of it right into the left side of Flitwick's chest.

It was at this point that Professor Malcolm got the obvious question out - "What are you doing?!"

Professor Halim ignored him, though, concentrated on his task as he incanted, " _Fulmenculus!"_

There was a crackle, and the Headmaster's body jerked. Halim put his ear to Flitwick's chest a second time, and raised his head immediately.

"Good," Halim said. "We've brought ourselves some time, but we need to move."

"What's -" Professor Gladstone looked like a deer in headlights.

"The headmaster's heart just stopped, and if we don't get him help soon, he's dead," Halim said in no uncertain terms.

Gladstone stammered for a moment and seemed to have trouble getting words out. Then something peculiar happened. Malcolm called out to her by name - "Meridia-" - and by the time she had looked up to acknowledge him, he was already in the process of planting a kiss on her lips.

Neville cringed. "Is this really the time-?"

But Malcolm wasn't listening, and it took him a moment to break the kiss. When he did, he immediately put his hands on her shoulders and said, " _You're Acting Headmistress."_

The change took a second, but no longer. A blink, a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes, the look in them was completely different. "Right. Professor Halim, send for Madam Pomfrey."

Professor Halim almost didn't wait to hear the end of the sentence. "I appreciate Madam Pomfrey for her particular skills, but this is beyond them. He needs a proper facility."

"What? Like St. Mungo's?" asked Ambrose. "We don't have that kind of time, do we?"

"Ithamar's right," Gladstone agreed. "We'd have to get him off the grounds first and then get all the way down to London somehow."

"There's a smaller clinic in Hogsmeade, right?" suggested Malcolm. "Just built a couple of years ago. I don't know if they'll be enough."

"They'll have to be," Professor Halim answered, a grave frown turning the corners of his mustache.

"And what of these four?" asked Wenster, rather insistently.

The look Gladstone gave Wenster would have to be seen to be believed. "With all due respect, Professor Wenster, does this look like the time to you?"

"I realize it isn't convenient, _Headmistress_ , but they have to go somewhere," Wenster replied coldly. "And after what's transpired this evening, I'll not have them back in Gryffindor Tower."

"That's not your call to make," Neville pointed out very quickly.

"And will you be leaving again to see to your wife and child after you make said call?" asked Wenster.

"Yes, I will," Neville answered matter-of-factly. "And even then, only after we make sure the Headmaster sees a Healer."

"On second thought, we may need Madam Pomfrey after all," Halim remembered. "Best way is by Portkey, but to work the magic properly, you need someone who has seen the place you're going with their own two eyes. She's the only one that has, to my knowledge."

"I'll go fetch her," Wenster replied, but Ambrose was quick to disagree.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said.

"And why's that?" Wenster asked.

"Because two of my students are in the hospital wing, and frankly, at the moment, I don't trust you around my students," Ambrose answered.

"People that have nothing to hide tend not to see enemies around every corner," Wenster remarked.

"At this point, I'm not sure looking around a corner is entirely nece-"

" _Enough_!" Gladstone lost her temper. "I don't _care_ who gets her, just _go_! This was already enough of a fiasco because of the both of you-"

These words very obviously set Ambrose off, and he stormed away from everyone else and toward the lift that would bear him down the tower to the rest of the castle.

"He's overly sensitive," Wenster commented.

Gladstone ignored Wenster's potshot. "The rest of you, I'll need you to return to your common rooms and explain the situation to your Houses. You too, Neville, if you're willing."

"That'll be best, probably," Neville sighed. "I've already told Hannah I might be late getting back to London."

"These four are all yours as well," Gladstone said to Neville, pointing with her chin at James and the other boys. "Your House, your decision. Honestly, I don't understand why the rest of us were brought into this to begin with. Professor Wenster should have…"

"If it were my decision, all four of these boys would be leaving Hogwarts tonight," Wenster replied.

"The Panel was created to check that sort of autocracy," Gladstone commented.

"Which is why the rest of you were brought into this," Wenster said.

"It was a waste of time," Gladstone answered coldly. "I wasn't inclined to expel four students from Hogwarts tonight, and I don't believe any of our Head of Houses here were, either."

"On that note..." Halim interjected himself into the conversation again.

"Yes?" Gladstone queried. Then, after a moment, she seemed to realize what Halim was about to ask. "Right. Yes, if you'd be so kind. The answer to the riddle is…"

"I'm rather clever. I'm sure I can figure it out," Halim crossed the room swiftly toward the lift.

This left Malcolm and Gladstone together. Malcolm went to touch her but hesitated and settled for a look. "You can do this."

"I'm not sure about that," Gladstone confessed. "But I don't have a choice now, do I?"

Malcolm nodded wordlessly, then followed Halim toward the lift.

Gladstone took a deep breath once again, then drew her wand. Pressing the tip to her throat, she whispered, " _Sonorus Maxima Castellum."_

When she spoke again, James heard her not much louder than she had been before, yet could also hear distant echoes of her voice coming from elsewhere - even outside the castle's walls, by the sound of things.

"ATTENTION, HOGWARTS STUDENTS..."


End file.
